54 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF NORWICH AND DISTRICT 
the Weybourne Crag, however, the marine equivalent of the (estuarine) 
Cromer Forest-beds Series next to be considered. 
In the neighbourhood of Cromer, Mundesley and Lowestoft, the series 
of deposits known collectively as the Cromer Forest-beds appears at the 
base of the cliffs and on the foreshore. The succession includes two 
freshwater beds separated by an estuarine deposit, the ‘ Forest-beds ’ 
proper. The Lower Freshwater-bed is composed of peat and peaty 
clays, but it is often missing, or may be replaced by a bed of large flints 
in which have been found flakes and hand-axes of early human types. As 
Clement Reid (who did so much admirable work on the Pliocene deposits 
of Britain) pointed out in 1890, the relation of the Lower Fresh-water- 
beds to the estuarine division of the Forest-beds seems to be somewhat 
similar to that of the recent submerged forests in estuaries to the deposits 
now being formed in the same localities, in part from the destruction of 
them. The upper surface of the Estuarine-bed, which contains many 
bones and teeth of large mammals, is in places weathered into a soil and 
penetrated by roots. The Upper Freshwater-bed consists of peaty 
loams containing freshwater shells and many bones and teeth, and lies 
in erosion-hollows of the Estuarine-bed. The general characters of the 
life of Cromerian times may be summarised in the statement that the 
land fauna, which may be largely derivative from the south, is dominantly 
of warm type, and the marine fauna, which seems to be indigenous, is of 
a well-marked arctic type. The mammalian fauna indicates the survival 
from earlier Crag times of warm temperate species such as Elephas 
meridionalis, E. antiquus, Hyena striata, Rhinoceros etruscus, Equus 
stenonis and Macherodus, and the first appearance of Hippopotamus. 'There 
is also a rich rodent and deer fauna, but together with the southern forest 
types, the arrival of tundra and northern forest types, such as E. trogon- 
therii, Ovibos moschatus, and Alces latifrons, is to be noted. The vegetable 
remains from the Forest-beds include stools of trees swept down by the 
rivers, together with the twigs, leaves and pollen, all indicative of plant 
life not very different from that of the area to-day. 
Next in the stratigraphical succession, according to the views of the 
earlier workers, comes the Leda myalis bed. Its molluscan fauna is 
similar to that of the Weybourne Crag, with the addition of Leda (Yoldia) 
myalis Couthouy, and its lithological characters are not notably different. 
TV. QUATERNARY. 
A deposit but rarely exposed in the Norfolk cliff-sections is the Arctic 
Freshwater-bed, which consists of laminated peaty loams of lenticular 
character, apparently occupying channels and only sporadic in occurrence. 
It lies immediately beneath the Cromer Till, referred to hereafter, and 
seems to be separated from the Forest-beds by the Leda myalis bed, but 
exposures showing the stratigraphical relations have not been visible for 
many years. According to C. Reid, its plants include mosses, arctic 
birch and arctic willow, and the freshwater shells include Succinea 
putris (Linné), S. oblonga Draparnaud, Valvata piscinalis (Miiller), and 
