28 H. B. Woodivard—The Westleton Beds. 



" General Section on Westleton Common," yet in another pit on 

 the Common he found " in digging a few feet lower, a sandy clay 

 with very friable specimens of Tellina and Natica." 



There can be little doubt that in this " General Section " the 

 lower white and ochreous pebbly sands belong to the Crag Series, 

 upon which as at Dunwich the Westleton Beds directly rest ; and 

 that this Pliocene formation, as Mr. Whitaker has shown, occupies 

 a large area and forms a great portion of the Dunwich cliff.^ 



In my opinion Prestwich's original section (though diagrammatic) 

 expresses the facts better than do his later statements. Therein 

 the Westleton Shingle at Dunwich, that directly underlies the 

 Boulder-clay, was rightly placed by him in the Middle Glacial 

 (" Boulder Sands and Gravels "), while he grouped the beds at the 

 base of the cliff, which are well known to be Crag, with the mass 

 of the pebble-beds of Southwold. With this latter correlation also 

 I entirely agree ; both belong to the Crag Series, though Prestwich 

 grouped both as Westleton sands and shingle. Thus troubles arose 

 from the correlation of the Southwold shingle with that at 

 Westleton, and they have been complicated by the inclusion of part 

 of the Crag Series at Westleton with the Westleton Beds.- 



Mr. C. Eeid has pointed out that the shelly exposures which have 

 been noted in the Southwold pebbly gravel in the cliff north of the 

 town, at a pit on the Lowestoft Road, and at Southwold Station, 

 contain a fauna identical with that of the Norwich Crag.^ As we 

 pass on to Easton Bavent we again see a mass of similar pebbly 

 gravel, divided by a band of Chillesford Clay which thickens 

 northward ; and the whole in my opinion belongs to the Crag Series, 

 with the exception perhaps of a thin gravelly covering here and 

 there. These beds are not to be compared with the 30 or 40 feet 

 of Westleton Beds at Westleton. As Mr. A. E. Salter has remarked, 

 here " we have tioo distinct kinds of gravel." * 



A section identical with that on Westleton Common is to be seen 

 in a large pit north of the Southwold railway, where it branches off 

 from the main line. No one would dispute that here we have the 

 true Westleton Beds, and here they are overlain by the Chalky 

 Boulder-clay, which was lately so well exposed in the adjacent 

 cutting by Halesworth Station. 



A glance at the Geological Survey Map shows that the separation 

 of the pebble-beds from the Glacial sands and gravels may often be 

 taken as a lithological rather than as a stratigraphical division, and 

 that there is work still to be done in separating Pliocene from 

 Glacial deposits. 



There is abundant evidence to show that the buff sands which, 

 characterize the Middle Glacial Drift over large areas in East Anglia 

 do contain bands, and here and there masses, of shingle like that of 

 Westleton. 



1 "Geology of Soutliwold" (Geol. Survey), 1887. 



- Proc. Geol. Assoc, vol. xv, p. 440. 



3 " Pliocene Deposits of Britain," p. 104. 



* Proc. Geol. Assoc, 1896, vol. xiv, p. 398. 



