Mr. R. C. Taylor on the Geology of East Norfolk. 349 



bones probably belong to animals who fed and died in those 

 situations; while others appertain to species that were extin- 

 guished by the last catastrophe which affected our earth. 



In two other moory valleys within the diluvial district of 

 Norfolk the horns of stags have been found : the one at Car- 

 brooke, near the head of the Stoke river ; the other at East 

 Bilnev bv Dereham, communicating with the Wensum valley. 



From 'all that has been said in the foregoing pages, it will 

 appear that the fossil bones occupy no specific place in the 

 upper marine formation. They are found eciually lodged iii 

 the higher valleys as at the lowest point to which the sea re- 

 tires, and even on shoals some miles from the shore ; and 

 ihou^rh frequendv unaccompanied by crag shells, are most 

 commonly blended with them. Sometimes they rest, m good 

 preservation, in ancient peaty depositions, or lie, as if thrown by 

 currents, amongst heaps of marine shells ; and in other cases, 

 broken and partially rounded, they are imbedded in diluvial 



gravel. . . 



We can therefore only conclude that the existence ot those 

 races was equally contemporaneous with the crag and with 

 the buried sylvan tract at the base of the cliffs, and that it 



pons similar to them might be found, a visitation from the Vikingr, or Sea- 

 kings of the North, is strongly indicated. 



Havin" obtained certain data, approximating to chronological accuracy, 

 we shall Uience be enabled to observe, with some precision, the time occu- 

 pied in formini; alluvial depositions, since those early traces of man, those 

 rude works of^art, were deposited in our valleys and morasses. The ca- 

 noes, the implements of war and of commerce, the works and the personal 

 ornaments, both of the aboriginal inhabitants and their successive invaders, 

 are occasionally exposed or raised from beneath extensive peat formations 

 in this island. They are, indeed, the only criteria by which to mark and 

 measure the extent of this alluvial process in given periods, and in parti- 

 cular situations, during the succession of ages which have elapsed since the 

 surface of our soil was habitable to man. From the many instances which 

 have occurred of these geological chronometers, two only will be selected 

 as bearing more immediately upon the main topic of this paper and but 

 little removed from the district under consideration. In the marshes ot the 

 Medway, which nearly resemble those of East Norfolk, several canoes were 

 dug up. in 1720, in all respects similar to those which are ascribed to the 

 ancient Britons ; being composed each of a single tree, hollowed by fire, 

 precisely in the same manner as those of the North American Indians. 



The other instance is the Roman Causeway, supposed to have been 

 made by the Emperor Scverus, extending from Denver to Peterhoroiigh, 

 across theEens of Cambridgeshire. It was composed of gravel three feet deep 

 and MXty feet broad, but is now covered with moor or peat from three to 

 five feet in thickness. In both these cases, particularly in the latter evi- 

 dence is produced of an increased clevalion of surface, and the gradual for- 

 mation of solid land, either bv the deposition of oozy sediment, or by the 

 growth and decay of vegetable substances ; and data arc supplied, as m 

 the case of the ancient anchors in the tiaricnis, for measuring the extent 

 and duration of that process. 



ceased 



