3-jG Horace B. Woodward— The North Cliff, Soutlncold. 



rolled flints than the underlying BoiiUler-clay. Moreover, the 

 number of chalk stones tells of reconstruction, as from the brown- 

 weathered Boulder-clay such materials have usually been removed 

 by dissolution. 



The masses of Boulder-clay seen at the several points noted in the 

 section, form portions of one bed which formerly extended along the 

 front of the low cliffs, as represented on the Geological Survey map 

 by Mr. Whitaker. Traces of the Boulder-clay may still be seen here 

 and there at other points at the foot of the cliffs, where the modern 

 beach-shingle lies in thin patches. Elsewhere it forms projecting 

 banks, as it has withstood the ravages of the sea better than the Crag 

 deposits, the fresh- water beds, or the modern loamy beach accumula- 

 tion. That it forms part of the well-known chalky Boulder-clay of 

 East Anglia, admits of no doubt. It contains, in addition to chalk 

 and flint, fragments of Kimeridge shale with Lucina minascula ; also 

 Belemnites and Gryphaa arcuata. 



The age of the fresh-water bed is not clear. At first sight it 

 resembles a mass of the Forest Bed series, reminding one of the 

 black peaty bed and Rootlet Bed that overlie the Chillesford Clay 

 at Kessingland and Runton. 1 Fossil evidence is needful to determine 

 its age, for one must bear in mind the " post-Glacial " river-bed of 

 Mundesley, the fresh-water bed found by Mr. Charles Candler over 

 the Boulder-clay at South Elmharu, near Harleston, 2 and that at 

 Hoxne, with any one of which it is possible the Southwold bed 

 may correspond. 



Mr. Clement Reid, who has kindly examined some of the materials 

 from the fresh-water bed, has identified Planorbis complanatus, 

 Valvata piscinalis, Splicerium corneum, and Pisidium pusillum ; also 

 Ranunculus aquatilis, Comarum palustre, and Ceratophylhun demersum. 

 As both mollusca and plants range from the Pliocene (Forest Bed 

 series) to the present time, they afford no clue to the precise age of 

 the deposit. 



It would seem natural to compare this fresh-water bed with the 

 " post-Glacial brick-earth " worked a little further north, and briefly 

 described by Mr. S. V. Wood, jun., and afterwards by Sir J. Prestwich, 

 who recorded the occurrence in it of Eleplias prhnigenius. z An 

 examination of the present sections in the brickyard showed no strata 

 that could be correlated with the beds seen in the cliff; moreover, the 

 deposits are separated by the intervening mass of Crag beds. I am 

 thus obliged to leave the age of the fresh-water bed an open question. 

 That it does not occupy an undisturbed hollow in the Boulder-clay, 

 is shown by the synclinal arrangement of the layers in the fresh- 

 water deposit; and this fact, together with that of the striking 

 resemblance to the characters of the Forest Bed series, suggested 

 transportation. Mr. Reid has, however, drawn my attention to a 



1 It is interesting to learn that Mr. J. H. Blake observed beds that might belong to 

 the Rootlet Bed (Forest Bed series) at Easton Bavent. — Whitaker, " Geol. South wold," 

 p. 70. 



2 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. xlv, p. 504. 



3 See Whitaker, " Geol. Southwold," p. 62. 



