CHAP. XII. FOREST BED OF NORFOLK CLIFFS. 215 



lated, after which salt water again predominated, so that 

 species of Mijtiliis, Mya, Leda, and other marine genera, 

 lived in the same area where the Uiiio^ Cyclas, and Paludina 

 had flourished for a time. That the marine shells lived and 

 died on the spot, and were not thrown up by the waves during 

 a storm, is proved, as Mr. King has remarked, by the fiict 

 that at West Eunton, N.W. of Cromer, the Mya truncata 

 and Leda myalis are found with both valves united and 

 erect in the loam, all with their posterior or siphun- 

 cular extremities uppermost. This attitude affords as good 

 evidence to the conchologist that those mollusca lived and 

 died on the spot as the upright j)Osition of the trees proves to 

 the botanist that there was a forest over the chalk east of 

 Cromer. 



Between the stimips of the buried forest, and in the lignite 

 above them, are many well-preserved cones of the Scotch and 

 spruce firs, Pimis sylvestris, and Pinus Abies. The specific 

 names of these fossils were determined for me in 1840, by a 

 botanist of no less authority than the late Eobert Brown; and 

 Professor Ileer has lately examined a large collection from . 

 the same stratum, and recognized among the cones of the 

 spruce some which had only the central part or axis remain- 

 ing, the rest having been bitten off, precisely in the same 

 manner as when in our woods the squirrel has been feeding 

 on the seeds. There is also in the forest bed a great quan- 

 tity of resin in lumps, resembling that gathered for use, 

 according to Professor Heer, in Switzerland, from beneath 

 spruce fii's. 



The following is a list of some of the plants which were 

 collected by the Eev. S. G-. King, in 1861, from the forest bed, 

 and named by Professor Heer : — 



Pinus sylvestris, Scotch fir Mundesley. 



Pinus Abies, spruce fir " 



15 



