58 Mr Marr, The Meres of Breckland. 
The Meres of Breckland. By J. E. Marr, ScD, F.BS., 
St John’s College. 
[Read 25 November 1912. ] 
THE sandy heaths of south-west Norfolk and north-west 
Suffolk form a type of physiographical feature unique in Britain. 
Among many points of interest in the district are several small 
meres, in the drainage-basin of the Little Ouse; these lie among 
the heaths between Croxton and Wretham, north of Thetford. 
The origin of these meres has never been explained, and 
requires elucidation. These notes are only intended to direct 
attention to the question of their formation, and to offer some 
facts bearing upon it. 
The meres above mentioned form a cluster a little way north- 
west of Roudham Junction. They are noticed by Mr F. J. Bennett 
in the Geological Survey Memoir of the district (Geology of the 
Country around Attleborough, Watton, and Wymondham, 1884, 
p- 17). He suggests that they started as sand and gravel pipes 
in the chalk, and afterwards became enlarged by chemical solution, 
assisted by mechanical disintegration during rise and fall of 
underground water. 
An interesting paper on the meres by Mr W. G. Clarke 
appeared in the Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich 
Naturalists’ Society, Vol. vit (1903), p. 499 ; 1t contains a number 
of observations, but he does not give any explanation of their 
origin other than that offered by Mr Bennett. 
The meres under notice occur in two shallow valleys lying 
north and south of an east-west plateau. In the northern valley 
lie the Devil’s Punch Bowl, Fowlmere, Home Mere, and a group in 
Wretham Park including Mickle Mere: in the southern one are 
Langmere and Ringmere. 
The meres possess several features in common. All are dry in 
seasons of little rainfall, and only under very exceptional condi- 
tions is any one completely filled to the brim, so that normally 
they have no outlet. The sides of some are steep, at the angle 
of repose of the material which composes them, and the surface 
