40i Frof. T. G. Bonneii—Tlie Chalk Blufl' at Tnmingham. 



rising to a height of a few inches from the shore-shingle and 

 apparently snpporting one or two outlying fragments of chalk. 

 Boiilder-clay, as shown in Mr. Mallet's photograph of 1905, underlay 

 both the landward end of the mass C and the curved slab E.^ 

 That these two might be connected beneath the beach now seemed 

 more probable than in 1905, but, if so, the mass must be strangely 

 twisted, and the same would be true of the thin slab exposed in the 

 cliff above.- In this case, however, the very great thickness of the 

 well-bedded gravel underlying this slab on the more western side 

 would be very diflftcult to explain, and we think it far more probable 

 that the latter at any rate is a separate boulder. 



In short, I cannot accept the principal points in Mr. Brydone's 

 reading of this section — that any of these chalk masses are sea-stacks, 

 or the gritty seam is a Cretaceous deposit, or the grey chalk is part 

 of a mass in situ. If it be, its position at the top and bottom 

 of the sloping face of the mass C is a great and by no means the 

 only difiSciilty. Much of this grey chalk has the appearance of 

 remanie material.^ That it has not been derived from rock quite 

 identical with the white chalk below I fully believe, for I think that 

 at this place two or three boulders have been dropped so as to be once 

 or twice in actual contact, as has happened in at least one instance 

 between the two Runton Gaps. I have often seen chalk fallen from 

 a cliff which, were it frozen, transported, and then buried where 

 clay or grit was accumulating, would present just the appearance of 

 this grey chalk in the places we have described. We must also not 

 forget the possibility of grey chalk from the higher part of a cliff 

 falling on the top of white chalk from the lower part, when the two 

 might be frozen together and transported as one block. In fact, 

 I consider these boulders, like those near the Sidestrand Hotel, one 

 or two of which are still visible, to be of "quite local origin " (p. 16). 

 I differ also from Mr. Brydone in supposing that, while by a singular 

 chance the present sea-line so nearly corresponds with that in pre- 

 Glacial time, a chalk upland lay on the northern and the sea itself 

 on the southern side. Neither can I understand how the Mundesley 

 well section drives "a final nail into the coffin of the erratic theory " 

 (p. 125), seeing that I have always looked in this direction for the 

 chalk cliffs from which the erratics wei'e derived.* 



The two chalk masses nearer Mundesley — the south bluff of 

 previous writers — were not so well exposed, either on this or on the 

 previous occasion, as at some of Mr. Brydone's visits ; the attenuated 



' This seemed to have been reduced in thickness since our last visit. 



2 See Mr. Brydone's photograph, PL V, Fig. 11. 



^ Mr. Brydone says this chalk cannot be remanie because delicate fossils in 

 it are unbroken. But, as we can still see in blocks of chalk fallen from the cliffs, 

 the exterior breaks up into fragments, the interior only cracking, so that the former 

 may get mixed with clay or gravel and yet not be ground up, and the latter be only 

 fissured. 



* The drift hills inland from east of Mimdesley to Avest of Sheringhara are quite 

 high enough to conceal a buried line of pre-Glacial cliffs. One would be glad if it 

 could be ascertained whether the chalk, worked in old pits and now exposed on the 

 new railway cutting between Cromer Station and Overstrand village, is in situ or 

 only a very large erratic. 



