238 Correspondence—Mr. Clement Reid. 
THE GLACIAL DEPOSITS OF CROMER. 
Srr,—Knowing the great objection that geologists have to long 
papers, at least to those of other people, I tried in my account of the 
Glacial Deposits of Cromer‘! to condense into eleven pages the main 
results of four years’ work, and of several thousand notes. I am 
afraid that in so doing I have omitted to make sufficiently clear my 
reasons for arriving at conclusions very different from those of 
previous observers. 
I must thank Mr. O. Fisher for his courteous and unbiassed 
references to my paper, and observe that others also have drawn 
my attention to the insufficient explanation given of the supposed 
action of the ice-sheet. 
The thick mass of contorted beds near Cromer I consider to be 
quite a local phenomenon, as will be seen by my paper, and I think 
Mr. 8. V. Wood, jun., is quite unjustified in trying to saddle me with 
the absurd theory that the “ice has shoved Norfolk out of its place.” 
I stated that ‘‘the mound of contorted beds pushed up by the ice 
still remains and forms the high land near Cromer.” 
The contortions near Norwich, in the Waveney Valley, etc., were, 
I think, formed by the sliding of the ice over the beds, or perhaps 
ploughed up on the first advance of the ice-sheet. The mound at 
Cromer seems to have been pushed along by the ice from the N.E., 
till the mass of contorted beds reached such a thickness as, for a time 
at least, to entirely stop the flow, and allow the smaller flow from 
the chalk hills to follow the slope of the ground independently of 
the larger sheet. The Contorted Drift is beds of any age contorted 
at the time of the formation of the Chalky Boulder-clay, and I ought 
to have given a distinct name to the probably sedimentary and 
slightly contorted Boulder-clay also called “Contorted Drift ;” but 
from the way that any bed may pass laterally into Contorted Drift, 
I found it in practice often difficult to separate them. 
My difficulties in accepting Mr. Fisher’s view, that the contortions 
were formed by the dead weight of masses let down from above, 
are firstly—that I cannot find a single case where uncontorted beds 
have been deposited over the contorted ones, though at first sight 
many sections have that appearance; and, secondly, that no weight 
we can imagine possible could drive up the solid chalk at Trimmineg- 
ham in a ridge three-quarters of a mile long from N.W. to 8.E., and 
apparently about 250 yards wide, this disturbance, it must be 
remembered, affecting not merely the chalk, but 200 feet of over- 
lying clays and sands. It was from observing this and similar 
ridges that I came to the conclusion that the contortions must have 
been formed by slow, steady, lateral pressure from the N.E. On 
first examining the coast, the impression given by the contortions is, 
that they are hopelessly confused; but after two years’ work at the 
sections and maps, I found that they resolved themselves roughly 
into a series of folds with the longer axes parallel with the coast. 
With regard to the curious hollows in the Trimmingham chalk 
mentioned by Mr. Fisher, I have examined several, and they seem 
1 Gzou. Mac. Dec. II. Vol. VII. p. 55. 
