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



That the same causes which finally closed the aestuary at 

 Caister, were simultaneously operating to bar the ancient 

 haven at Kirkley, and probably to exclude the sea from the 

 more northerly inlets. 



That as soon as the admission of the tide was limited to 

 one narrow and obstructed inlet, the quantity thenceforward 

 was so trifling that " many thousand acres became dry, and 

 in time good pasturage for cattle." With the assistance of em- 

 bankments, the entire level of marshes became firm land; rich 

 vegetation covered its surface, and the rivers weie restricted 

 to their deep channels. 



This is the solution of that change whose traces are yet so 

 perceptible ; a solution compatible with all the real circum- 

 stances, physical and historical, with which the subject is con- 

 nected. Whilst care has been taken to divest the recital of its 

 apparently exaggerated features, abundant range has been 

 allowed, in accordance with physical probability, for all re- 

 corded facts and fairly inferred occurrences. 



There exists nothing in the series of phaenomena, displayed 

 within the limits of these eastern valleys, that is not repeated 

 on a tenfold scale, in the fens of Lincolnshire and Cambridge- 

 shire. We have there the spectacle of a tract as extensive as 

 the county of Norfolk ; once an inland sea, now valuable and 

 productive land ; — subjected, in its various stages, to opera- 

 tions similar to those on the shores of the Garienis : — reclaim- 

 ed, abandoned to the ocean, and again reclaimed ; — while 

 the efforts of nature in this earth-forming process, seconded 

 by the labours of man, have been recorded with instructive 

 fidelity. 



Assumptions founded on the limited considerations of local 

 operations, of obvious origin and of daily occurrence, are ob- 

 jectionable, because the deductions drawn from thence are 

 seldom applicable to general principles. 



The filling up an aestuary by the gradual precipitation from 

 waters charged with alluvial nmd, and the consetjuent exclu- 

 sion of the tide from its ancient receptacles, offers no better 

 claim on which to establish the principle of a general depres- 

 sion of all the seas in this quarter of our globe, than the ac- 

 tual elevation of several feet, through obvious volcanic agency, 

 of the bed of the Pacific Ocean for a hundred miles parallel 

 to the Andes, proves the general depression of the entire wa- 

 ters of that immense ocean. 



The antediluvian shells in the margin of the Norwich val- 

 ley, prove a local formation only ; not the general elevation 

 of tlie North Sea, subsequent to the deluge. As well might 

 Mr. Robberds have fixed the general elevation of the mighty 



water 



