Correspondence. 275 



Mr. Woodward said the subject was most important to geologists, 

 and he thought that Mr. Taylor had treated it in an able manner. 

 He agreed with the author that the establishment of a proper dis- 

 tinction between the upper and lower beds would make a great 

 difference in the per centage of shells. He also thought that the 

 manner in which the lower bed was shown to be a fluvio-marine or 

 littoral deposit, and the upper decidedly marine, was very impor- 

 tant, inasmuch as the latter, perhaps, formed a connecting link 

 between the true Crag and the Glacial series. He had mentioned to 

 his brother, Mr. B. B. Woodward, that Mr. Taylor was about to read a 

 paper on this subject, and he, from long experience with his father, 

 the late Mr. Samuel Woodward, in the geology of the county, was 

 able to confirm Mr. Taylor's views respecting the distinct character 

 of the two beds. Mr. Woodward advised the members of the Nor- 

 wich G-eological Society to devote their attention to the solution of 

 this very interesting question. 



The President (the Eev. John Gunn, F.G.S.), then said that he 

 thought the bed of shells in the Whitliugham Tramway belonged to 

 the laminated beds, which, in the "Antiquity of Man," were called 

 fluvio-marine. They overlaid the forest bed on the south side of 

 the Cromer Jetty, and the Norwich Crag on the north side. The 

 forest bed must have occupied a long period of time, during which 

 its soil was first raised above the water in which it had been 

 deposited, continued above it while the forest flourished, and then 

 was giadually submerged ; and this forest bed intervened between 

 the Norwich Crag and the upper or marine part of the lami- 

 nated beds, in which Mr. Gunn supposed the shells to be. He 

 pointed out a fine section of them, near Bishop's-gate Bridge, 

 Norwich, where they lie between the Norwich Crag and the Lower 

 Boulder-clay. 



coE-E-ESiPOisrnDiEiD^CE. 



NOTES AND QUERIES IN EEGARD TO THE VALLEY OF THE SOMME. 

 To the Editor of the Geological Magazine. 



Sir, — ^The valley of the Somme, as described by Sir C. Lyell and 

 Mr. Prestwich, is a long shallow trough, thirty miles in length, 

 about one in average width, and from two to thi-ee hundred feet in 

 depth. It has been hollowed out of a bed of " Chalk with Flints." 



On the sides there are two level terraces, composed of shingle and 

 sand, with occasional beds of clay. The gravel consists of fragments 

 of rocks, the same as those found in the district at present drained 

 by the Somme. In some places, where the terraces have been opened 

 for industrial purposes, implements of flint have been discovered, as 

 well as the bones of some mammalia now extinct. 



Sea-shells are found mingled with the gravel as far up as Menche- 

 court, twenty miles from the mouth of the river. 



