400 Professor T. G. Bonney 8^ Rev. E. Hill— 



Our final visit was in April last, when we found that the aspect 

 of this part of the coast had been greatly altered by inroads of the 

 sea. The western bluff (A),^so often noticed above, was now partly 

 isolated, apparently reduced in length and height, and altered in 

 shape, for another mass of chalk (C), almost separated from the former 

 by a kind of passage, filled with the usual bouldei'-clay (B), had been 

 disclosed to the south-west, roughly speaking. The south-western 

 flank of this curved gradually down to the beach, as is well shown 

 in the photograph, having a wedge-like termination, the lower side 

 of which was seen to rest (D) on the usual greyish boulder-clay. 

 Still more west and rather south of this, was a slab-like mass 

 of chalk (E). As the two are only a few yards apart thej' 

 might have a hidden connection underneath the beach, but we 

 thought this improbable, for while they dipped on the whole 

 towards each other, they did not appear to form part of a regular 

 syncline. This last mass of chalk rests against and overlies the 

 usual boulder-clay (F). In the remnant of the original western 

 chalk-mass the flint bands showed, as we thought, a shai'p curvature 

 in the lower part of that face, and on its eastern one curves more 

 like part of a quadrant. On this side a bed of chalky gravel rested 

 against the landward face of the chalk, and parallel with the former 

 was a distinctly stratified bed in the boulder-clay (that filling the 

 'tunnel'). These bands were parallel with the edge of the chalk 

 and dipped seawards at a high angle. Also they made an angle of 

 some 30° with the tangents to the curves of the flint layers at their 

 nearest parts. Thus they can hardly be cited to prove a 'rucking 

 up.' The chalk lintel of this portal varied irregularly in thickness 

 from about a foot to about a yard, and seemed to be continuous,- but 

 we came to the conclusion that this tunnelled mass of chalk was 

 more probably formed by two distinct boulders, the wedge-like edge 

 of one resting on the top of the other.^ The eastern mass, which 

 figured in our earlier descriptions, had now disappeared, unless it 

 were represented by little naore than a streak of chalky material at 

 the base of the cliff, together with that which in 1900 we saw beyond 

 it in the same direction.* 



About a quarter of a mile nearer Mundesley two great boulders of 

 chalk — respectively about sixty and thirty yards long, and about 

 twenty feet high — were exposed in the cliff, rising from the shore, 



' See Plate XXII, a reproduction of a photograph, taken shortly after our visit 

 by Mr. E. T. Mallet, for which and several others of great interest we are indebted to 

 his kindness. By the aid of this our description, we trust, will be intelligible to the 

 reader. 



^ It was not accessible. 



3 Wedge -like ends are not uncommon in these great chalk boulders. 



* In the neighbourhood of these masses, when the tide permitted (which sometimes 

 it did not), we have seen chalk near one mass, clay near the other, but no proof that 

 they are continuous with the chalk platform, which undoubtedly lies a very few feet 

 below them. A memorandum sent us with the photograph by Mr. Mallet is 

 important. " The foreground is a large mass of blue till, on the level top of which the 

 camera was placed. It was about a foot above the sea at 4 p.m. on May 9th." 

 (About an inch vertical of this foreground has not been reproduced in the Plate, for 

 otherwise the scale must have been dimiuished.) 



