VOL. XLIV.j PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 273 



earth from which vitriol is made; but this is of such a caustic nature, that if 

 but a small piece of it be held to the tongue, in a moment it causes as sharp and 

 excruciating a pain, as if a red-hot iron had been held to it. 



The marl, or rather chalk pits, at Cantley White House, about 3 miles from 

 Norwich, are made in the side of a long chain of hills, which runs along the side 

 of the river Yar, and about a furlong or two now and then distant from it. , 

 These hills seem to have been formerly the boundaries to an arm of the sea, 

 which made Norwich a famous sea port. This some of our ancient histories 

 make mention of as an undoubted truth, though now considered as a mere fable, 

 as no vestiges of it remain above ground at this day.* 



In the abovementioned marl pits he discovered a stratum of shells, of about 

 2 feet thick, running nearly parallel to the horizon. He examined carefully this 

 stratum, where he found a great many kinds of shells ; but none which had 

 withstood time's all-devouring teeth, so as to bear the handling; excepting the 

 common wilk, some of which were very perfect. Among the variety of things 

 he noticed in this stratum was a piece of coal, which he picked out from among 

 the shells. This must have lain here as long as they, and been brought from 

 some other county, as nothing of its kind is to be found here, but what is 

 brought from distant parts. These shells lie 14 yards above the surface of the 

 river, and nearly 6 beneath the top of the hill, and he believes 34 yards above 

 the surface of the sea at Yarmouth. And it is very remarkable, that in these 

 marl pits, 6 or 7 yards lower than the abovementioned stratum of shells, are 

 found a vast quantity of stags' horns lying in all directions. Several I took out 

 with my own hands; so much so, that the workmen, which are employed here, 

 say, that they scarcely work a day, but they find more or less of them. But 

 none are found entire. 



These horns have been very large ones; some of the spines measuring 12 

 inches and upwards in length. Many of them are more than 2-^ inches in dia- 

 meter, and several of them above 12 inches from spine to spine. 



Another curiosity was the entire skeleton of a man, which was found in the 

 same stratum with the abovementioned horns, as one of the workmen assured 

 me; he said, he took the pains to lay it altogether on the grass, as regularly as 

 he was able; but his curiosity being then satisfied, he left it to be ground to pieces 

 by the carts and waggons that came thither for the marl; so careless were these 

 poor ignorant people of so valuable a specimen of the human race. 



Helmet stones and belemnites are found here in abundance, at all depths, and 

 in every diiFerent stratum, which shows that the fish which produced these fossils 



* Verstegan says, that many places which were sea became dry land, at the breaking of the Ger- 

 man Ocean through the Isthmus which once joined England to France. Verst. p. 1 17. — Orig. 

 VOL. IX. N N 



