GEOLOGY 



which became silted up with clay, and then supported a vegetation 

 whose remains indicate a temperate flora. Later deposits of black peaty 

 earth prove that the climate became colder, indeed Arctic or sub-Arctic ; 

 and these were succeeded by somewhat torrential deposits yielding 

 Palaeolithic implements.' At St. Cross (Sancroft) near South Elmham a 

 deposit somewhat similar to the bed at Hoxne with temperate flora was 

 found by Mr. C. Candler. It consists of peaty loam and clay evidently 

 deposited in a lake or pool that occupied a hollow in the Boulder Clay. 

 Bones of elephant as well as seeds of plants were obtained.^ At South- 

 wold a peaty bed has been exposed at the base of the north cliff, but its 

 age is uncertain.^ 



The gravel and loam or brickearth of the present rivers are found 

 here and there along their margins above the level of the ordinary 

 alluvium. The greater part of these accumulations appear to be of 

 Pleistocene age, as remains of the elephant, rhinoceros and hippopotamus 

 have been found in several localities. 



In thickness the deposits vary from a few feet up to about 25 feet. 

 They occur along the Waveney at Homersfield, Wortwell and Redden- 

 hall, at Bungay where the Common is based on a bar of gravel bordered 

 by a loop of the river, and at Beccles racecourse. They fringe the 

 Ouse valley, and by Warren House at Santon Downham curious caves 

 were described by Sir John Evans, some of sufficient magnitude to allow 

 of a man standing inside. They were formed in consequence of the 

 lower beds being let down into hollows of the Chalk, owing to its dis- 

 solution by water charged with carbonic acid.* 



Extensive deposits occur in the Lark valley above Mildenhall, 

 while along the Stour and its tributaries there are gravels at Long 

 Melford, Sudbury, Nayland, Lavenham and Brantham. Perhaps the 

 most interesting deposit is the brickearth at Stutton, which has yielded 

 Corbicula fluminalis, Hydrobia marginata. Helix fruticum and other mollusca, 

 as well as remains of elephant.' 



Along the borders of the Gipping and Orwell, at Needham and 

 Sproughton, and along the Deben there are occasional beds of loam and 

 gravel, while at the north end of Southwold a small tract of brickearth 

 yielding remains of elephant was at one time exposed. 



Evidence of the antiquity of man was obtained at a very early date 

 in Suffolk, although its significance was not until long after realized. 

 Thus in the year 1797 John Frere called attention to the finding of 

 stone implements at Hoxne,* and this discovery, although briefly referred 



* 'The Relation of Palxolithic Man to the Glacial Epoch,' by C. Reid, Rep. Brit. Assoc, for 1896, 

 1897, p. 400 ; 'Origin of British Flora,' pp. 52, 77. 



" ^art. Journ. Geol. Soc. xlv. 504 ; Reid, 'Origin of British Flora,' p. 90. 

 3 H. B. Woodward, Geol. Mag. (1896), p. 354. 



* Geo!. Mag. (1868), p. 444. 



" S. V. Wood, ' Crag Mollusca,' i. and ii. 304, etc. ; Whitaker, ' Geology of Ipswich,' p. 96. 



^ Archaoh^a, xiii. 204. See also J. Evans, ibid, xxxviii. 299, and ' Ancient Stone Implements 

 of Great Britain,' ed. 2 (1897), pp. 543-7^ ; Prestwich, Phil. Trans, i860, p. 304 ; C. Reid, Rep. 

 Brit. Assoc, for 1 896. 



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