and its Organic Remains, 89 



Bones of elephants and other quadrupeds aye much more 

 frequently associated with the shells of the crag in Norfolk ; 

 but in that county the formation in many places exhibits such 

 irregularities, and is sometimes so mingled with immense ac- 

 cumulations of sand and gravel, that it becomes almost im- 

 possible to distinguish the specific crag deposit from the ac- 

 companying diluvial strata. At Cromer patches of crag are 

 seen covered by cliffs of such materials two hundred feet in 

 thickness; and in the neighbourhood of Norwich, beds of 

 shells were reached after boring through eighty or a hundred 

 feet of diluvium *. 



To what extent, then, the remains of herbivorous animals 

 occasionally occurring in the crag may be considered con- 

 temporaneous with it or as belonging to a more recent period f, 

 is certainly a question of considerable interest, but upon 

 which the limits of my present communication will not allow 

 me to enlarge; I shall, therefore, only observe that the co- 

 ralline strata have not furnished the slightest vestige of the 

 Mammalia, a circumstance of considerable importance in 

 connexion with the view which I have taken respecting the 

 distinct period to which I attribute their formation. 



We now come to the most interesting part of the inquiry, — 

 the comparative age of the red and coralline crag, and their 

 geological relation to each other. A due consideration of the 

 preceding facts will, I think, naturally lead to one of the fol- 

 lowing conclusions: either that at the time when the eastern 

 parts of Norfolk and Suffolk were covered by the ocean, de- 

 posits were going forward, which, within a very small compass, 

 present in their general character and organic remains differ- 

 ences of a most unaccountable and extraordinary nature ; or 

 that, in accordance with my previous proposition, the tertiary 

 formations overlying the London clay in Suffolk have been 

 deposited at distinct periods. 



There would be nothing inconsistent with our knowledge 

 of the habits of marine animals, in supposing, that owing to a 

 variation in depth or other circumstances, many species of 

 Testacea would congregate in particular spots; and that in 



* Mr. R. C. Taylor on the Geology of East Norfolk. 



t Some of these bones have undergone the same peculiar change as the 

 teeth offish ; which would lead us to consider that they have been im- 

 bedded in the crag during a similar period, and are therefore of the same 

 or perhaps greater antiquity than that formation. 



Since the above observations were laid before the Geological Society, 

 Dr. Buckland has very kindly forwarded to me some of the proof-sheets of 

 his forthcoming Bridgewater Treatise ; in the first volume of which, among 

 his remarks upon the existence of Mammalia during the tertiary epoch, he 

 mentions, as one instance, the bones found in the crag of Norfolk. 



Third Series. Vol. 7. No. 38. Aug. 1835. N 



