194 Mr. Robberds on the former Level of the German Ocean, 



The operation of the bias thus given to Mr .Taylor's mind is 

 very apparent in the whole of his reasonings upon the Valleys 

 of Norfolk. He has admitted at once my historical proofs, and 

 assented to the first position established by them ; viz. that these 

 valleys were formerly .Testuaries, filled by the waters of the ad- 

 jacent sea. But Mr. Taylor denies that the retreat of those 

 waters affords any evidence of a depression in their general 

 level; and he maintains that the conversion of the greater part 

 of their early channels into dry land has been effected " bij the 

 gradual j^recipitation from waters charged with alluvial mud, 

 and the consequent exclusion of the tide from its ancient recepta- 

 cles" In addition to this ground of difference between us, he 

 also argues, that the marine deposits left on the sides of these 

 valleys do not attest the former elevation of the floods by which 

 they were occupied, but that they belong to the crag stratum, 

 and are part of a continuous bed or layer which covers the sub- 

 stratum of chalk through the whole district between Har- 

 wich and Cromer. On these two points, in which Mr. Taylor 

 strictly conforms to the orthodox geological creed of the pre- 

 sent day, I shall now offer a few remarks, in defence of my 

 peculiar and daring heresy. 



The terms in which Mr. Taylor has signified his assent, 

 leave some degree of uncertainty as to the extent of his con- 

 cession: he admits, " that at an early period of what may be 

 termed in geological phrase, the existing state of our globe, the 

 sea entered the mouths of these cestuaries, and rolled its tides far 

 up into the interior." By " the existing state of our globe," I 

 conclude is here meant the form in which its continents were 

 left at the supposed aera of the deluge, or 2348 years B. C. 

 But I cannot so clearly perceive what is to be understood as 

 an " early period " of that state. If the facts which I adduced 

 prove any thing, it is evident from them that at the time of 

 the conquest, or 3434 years after the above-mentioned epoch, 

 the tides of the ocean still covered these valleys. I have al- 

 ready shown that there were salt-works as " far up into the 

 interior" as Halvergate and South Walsham. A more careful 

 examination of the Domesday Book has subsequently enabled 

 me not only to discover an additional number of these works 

 in the Flegg hundreds, but also that others were found at 

 Tunstall, the adjoining village to Halvergate; at Fritton, on 

 the western edge of Lothingland, near Herringfleet ; and even 

 at Cantley, on the Norwich branch of the valley of the Yare, 

 which by the nearest possible water-course is full twelve miles 

 distant from the present coast. This single fact, certified by 

 a testimony so authentic and incontrovertible, would outweigh 

 in a question like the present a hundred thousand inferences 



from 



