268 Sir H, H. Howorth—North Norfolk Geology— 
IV.—Nortra Norrorx Grotocgy: Tae Cuark anp irs Distocation. 
By Sir Henry H. Howortu, K.C.1.E., F.R.S., F.G.8. 
i venturing to offer some further criticisms on the interpretation of 
the phenomena presented by Norfolk geology published in the 
memoirs of the Geological Survey and elsewhere, 1 may state that 
these criticisms are the result of several visits to the county in which 
I have either drawn or made detailed notes of nearly every critical 
section along the coast. 
Another visit, in which I have recently traversed many miles of 
country and revisited many important sections, has greatly strengthened 
the views already published by me in previous papers, and has made 
me more than ever dubious of the greater part of the theoretical 
explanations of the local phenomena contained in these memoits. 
I have said before, and I wish now to repeat, that the frailty of 
much of this official work has been largely due to the fact that in 
East Angla and Essex the Geological Surveyors have been so badly 
equipped financially by the Treasury for the work they have been 
expected to do, and which cannot be done efficiently until a great deal 
of experimental boring and other expensive modes of testing the 
surface beds away from the coast, below as well as on the surface, 
have been carried out, for which funds have not’ been available. ‘lo 
map the superficial facies of a vast area like Norfolk with no other 
guides to the surface beds than casual exposures in marl-pits or gravel- 
pits, most of which are mere shallow scrapings of the skin of the 
soft strata, is utterly futile, except as a tentative proceeding, and it 
is misleading beyond measure when, with no better guides to the 
distribution of these beds and of their possibly disturbed or undisturbed 
conditions than can be got from such accidental and adventitious 
exposures, far-reaching theories and explanations are published under 
official sanction. 
This only accounts, however, for a part of the mischief. I cannot 
help regretting that both in regard to the accessible facts and in 
regard to the discussion of the theoretical inferences the memoirs in 
question are so inadequate. It ought not assuredly to have been left 
to a foreign geologist to first explain the succession of the English 
Chalk, including that of Norfolk, nor to two amateurs with only 
casual opportunities to first give a detailed and masterly zonal 
classification of the same beds, nor to Mr. Brydone to first give us 
the necessary materials for adequately discussing the problem of the 
Chalk bluffs at Trimingham. 
Again, it is very untortunate that in regard to the boulders of the 
Norfolk drift so little material should be given us in the Survey 
Memoirs for discriminating the original sources of the stones, the 
distribution and relative proportions of the different varieties in 
different districts, and especially the sorting out of the rolled and the 
unrolled boulders. It is also a pity that im analyzing problems like 
those connected with the drifts of Norfolk a more systematic effort 
should not have been made to ascertain rather more carefully from 
the very intelligent fishermen the nature and constituents of the 
