Mr. R. C. Ta^'lor on the Geology of East Norfolk. 347 



diluvial clay in which they may frequently be noticed, whence 

 I have collected many specimens, and others may be seen se- 

 veral miles inland. It is probable that these large masses, after 

 being dislodged from the cliffs, are very little removed from 

 their original sites by the action of existing currents in the 

 ocean. This opinion is confirmed on considering the other cir- 

 cumstances attendant on the wearing away of these cliffs. As 

 might be expected, the alluvial substances that form the beach 

 and line the shores of the eastern counties, are, for the most 

 part, obviously derived from the small rounded fragments, 

 and the ancient water-worn gravel, whicli the sea has washed 

 from its precipitous borders. But there remain extensive por- 

 tions which do not appear to have changed their position, 

 fuither than would be occasioned by the dissolution of their 

 matrices. These instances occur, with few interruptions, in 

 a course of 12 miles, from Mundesley to Salthouse Bay, and 

 in particular at Foulness. A series of irregular ridges of un- 

 rolled angular flints, locally termed rocks, mark the ancient 

 sites of denuded chalk beds, and prove valuable barriers by 

 checking the violence of the surf in northerly gales. No change 

 in the forms of these ridges of chalk flints is perceptible. The 

 ocean, mighty and furious as it sometimes is, will partially 

 overspread them with sand, but is incapable of shifting the 

 heavy interlocking materials which offer the only permanent 

 obstacle to its encroachments. 



As regards the boulders of miscellaneous rocks, it may be 

 observed, in concluding that portion of our subject, that they 

 occur chiefly upon the beach and sloping shores ; not on those 

 external ridges over whose sharp irregular sui'faces they can 

 scarcely be imagined to have rolled. 



Whilst reviewing the geological phfenomenaattendanton the 

 eastern coast and valleys, we must not lose sight of those which 

 are observable in their upper extremities and ramifications. 

 These are lined, not with an oozy sediment as in the aestua- 

 ries, but with moor and forest peat, to the depth of six or seven 

 feet. In the operations of cutting drains and turf, the horns 

 of large ruminant animals have been discovered ; and in the 

 gravelly margins occur vertebrae and teeth of elephants. There 

 is a considerable deposit of peat in that valley in which the 

 Waveney and Little Ouse have their sources ; and trunks of 

 trees, whose wood is yet hard, are sometimes taken out and used 

 as fuel. Horns of deer are occasionally met with in the fens of 

 Lopham, Ilinderclay, Redgrave and Bressingham. It is an 

 interesting fact also, that in the peaty valley of the Waveney, at 

 Roydon, Diss and Hoxne, have been found ancient flint axes. 

 Teeth and large bones prevail in the diluvial gravel of the 

 2 Y 2 same 



