«4 Mr. R. Taylor on Cromer Cliffs. 



At the base lies the bed of ferruginous, peaty and laminated 

 clay, before adverted to ; here, as in frequent instances, dis- 

 posed in an irregularly waving or serrated line. Above this 

 is heaped a mass of dark blue mud or clay varying from ten 

 to near a hundred feet thick ; frequently containing small 

 chalky concretions, and sometimes pyrites and rounded frag- 

 ments of the older rocks, but possessing no peculiar organic 

 remains ; none, indeed, save a few solitary pieces of belemnites 

 or gryphea, and the shells contained within the bouldered 

 fragments of indurated clay. Over the blue clay is the brown 

 mud or clay, less compact than the former, full of springs, and 

 remarkable throughout its course for the contortions which it 

 exhibits. This also, for the most part, is barren of organic 

 deposits, except a few diluvial waterworn fragments : at the 

 spot we are describing, we have to notice a remarkable de- 

 parture from this character. A large portion of the brown 

 mud, occupying the space between the great contortion at A 

 and the crag sand at B, contains comminuted crag shells di- 

 spersed through the mass. These, and the detached masses 

 of chalk in the position shown in the sketch, afford further 

 proofs of the local disruption and partial dispersion of por- 

 tions of the preceding older deposits. 



I am acquainted with no corresponding instance of the 

 dispersion of crag shells through the adjoining clay beds in 

 the progress of this stratum through the interior of the county 

 of Norfolk. 



Since the sketch was placed in the engraver's hands, a 

 more attentive examination has convinced me that broken 

 portions of crag shells are abundantly interspersed through 

 the mass of the clay formation, particularly of the upper beds, 

 for a mile or two of the cliffs on each side of Cromer. These 

 fragments are so small, although abundant, that it is not sur- 

 prising that they were so often overlooked before. 



Traces of the crag formation are plentifully exhibited, at that 

 part of the cliffs upon which Foulness light-house is situated. 

 Here the diluvial clay or mud formation attains its greatest 

 elevation during the whole of its course along this coast. The 

 section of the exposed clay beds was measured by the writer, 

 and found to be 270 feet of perpendicular height ; above which 

 are horizontal deposits of gravel and sand, 40 to 50 feet more. 

 The whole of this accumulation of 270 feet contains com- 

 minuted crag shells intermixed with small chalky fragments*. 



The sand beds at Foulness light-house are probably 150 



* Messrs. Co'iybea'e ami Phillips consider 30 feet as the thickness of 

 this stratum at Harwich and Walton Naze ; and this, perhaps, is more than 

 an average thickness. 



feet 



