GEOLOGY OF THE NORWICH DISTRICT 55 
Pisidium henslowianum (Shepard). A rodent, Spermophilus, has also been 
found. 
The wonderful series of glacial deposits of Norfolk—probably the most 
complete in Britain—has been the subject of much re-investigation in 
recent years. Considerations of space forbid the recapitulation of the 
views and classifications propounded by the many distinguished geologists 
who have investigated the glaciology, but passing mention should be 
made of the work of Lyell, Joshua Trimmer, John Gunn, S. V. Wood, 
F. W. Harmer, Clement Reid and H. B. Woodward. Latterly, the work 
of Dr. G. Slater and Dr. J. D. Solomon has added much to our knowledge, 
and the discovery of flint implements zm situ in various deposits of the 
coastal area by Mr. Reid Moir, Mr. J. E. Sainty, Mr. A. C. Savin and - 
others has stimulated discussion and given rise to tentative correlation. 
It is difficult in a short article to summarise and reconcile the different 
views, for details must necessarily be omitted. 
Excluding the locally occurring Arctic Freshwater-bed, the opening 
phase of the Pleistocene epoch in East Anglia appears to have been an 
invasion of this low-lying country by a sea which spread sands and 
gravels, usually of shingly character (the Westleton Beds of J. Prestwich), 
over Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. The age of these deposits is uncertain, 
for they contain no traces of life (unless the Leda myalis beds and the 
Bure Valley beds in part are regarded as their equivalents), but they are 
seen to overlie the Norwich Crag and to underlie the Norwich Brickearth, 
a boulder clay which constitutes the earliest glacial deposit of Norfolk. 
Dr. Solomon has recently come to the conclusion that the sands and 
gravels of the Westleton Beds interdigitate with the Norwich Brick- 
earth and represent its marine facies, lying in front of the advancing ice- 
sheet, thus facilitating the drift of icebergs. 
The Norwich Brickearth is distributed over eastern Norfolk, and 
reaches as far south as Beccles and Sotterley near the Suffolk boundary. 
It consists of a yellowish brown or greyish sandy loam and includes 
occasional erratics. The erratics are dominantly of Chalk, chalk flint, 
and crystalline rocks, and the last named include types such as the well- 
known rhomb-porphyry, which could have been derived only from 
Scandinavia. The manner of their occurrence and the composition of 
the Brickearth are, however, suggestive of the possibility that the deposit 
was produced by the transport action and subsequent melting of icebergs 
rather than land-ice. 
Resting on the Norwich Brickearth and forming the striking sand- 
plain of north-eastern Norfolk (as well as of eastern Suffolk) are the sands 
and gravels formerly known as Mid-Glacial, but now considered by Dr. 
Solomon to be in large part Westleton Beds in which the Norwich Brick- 
earth occurs as lenses. In part these deposits indicated the recession of 
the North Sea ice and a consequent amelioration of the climate. Well- 
wooded estates, rhododendron avenues and beautiful open heaths, like 
those which inspired George Borrow, mark the outcrop of this sandy 
facies. At a few localities, as for example in the Flegg Hundred, near 
Yarmouth, the sands have yielded a marine fauna, the indigenous shells 
