1 34> Fossil Bones on the Coast of East Norfolk. 



phant. This was fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter, and 

 upwards of three inches thick, externally black and perfectly 

 smoodi. Unfortunately this specimen was not capable of re- 

 moval, except in fragments, from its having been divided into 

 a number of pieces by the splitting into die kind of septaria 

 and subsequent filling up \nth fei-ruginous matter mentioned 

 before. This mass probably weighed fifteen pounds ; and I 

 ret^ret that it was so decomposed and distorted, fi-om these 

 circumstances, as to render it doubtfiil as to the precise origi- 

 nal shape. 



Fragments of huge bones, more or less worn by attrition, 

 accordino- to the time in which diey have been removed from 

 their sites in the cliff, are met with on the beach. Some of 

 them are light and cellular, bxit for the most part they are 

 very heavy," deriving their weight from the iron with which 

 they are strongly impregnated. 



Nearer Cro'mer, embedded in the same stratum, I met with 

 the upper part of the skull or frontal bone of an animal of die 

 elk kind, having a portion of the horns remaining, but broken 

 off a little above their bases. Its surface is smoodi, black and 

 shining ; extremely ponderous, the forehead about six inches 

 broad. Fig. 3. 



Anoriier" skull which much resembles this, accompanied with 

 vertebrae of land animals, I have obtained from a similar stra- 

 tum of ferruginous gravel a few miles soudi-west of this spot, 

 a continuation, probably, of that which is exposed in the cliff 

 between Mundesley and Cromer, Fig. 1. 



Fossil bones have long ago been noticed in die cliffs of 

 Norfolk as occuri'ing incidentally, for it was not known that 

 they were stratified.' Sir Tliomas Browne communicates in 

 a letter to Sir William Dugdale, in die year 16,5.0, that the 

 head and bones of a very large fish were discovered near the 

 top of Happisburgh clifl; by die falling down of a part of die 

 soil in which they were embedded. 



The fossil griiider of an elephant of the Asiatic species v/as 

 also found here, ii 1805, by I'vlr. William Smith, and is now 

 with his collection in the British Museum. 



It is probable that a more extended osteological examination 

 will lead to the discovery of the mineralized remains of other 

 animals in this situation. At present we have added one to 

 the many ainhe'.itic instances of the remains of the stag be- 

 ing associated with diosc of die elephant. We may add a 

 fiirther instance in the neighbourhood of Norv,ich, where the 

 horns of sta^s are associated with the ojiali/ed teeth of the 

 mastodon or manimodi and the grinders of elephants. 



The stnitificd orginiic i cmaius in the dills of Ea.st Norfolk 



are 



