PROCEEDINGS 
OF 
THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 
Vou. III. 1840. No. 67. 
Jan. 22.—William Laverack, Esq., of Catherine Hall, Cambridge ; 
Zacharius Daniel Hunt, Esq., Aylesbury, Bucks; Robert Maulkin 
Lingwood, Esq., M.A., F.L.S., Mordiford, near Hereford; the Rev. 
William Strong Hore, M.A., Stoke, Devonport; Joseph Dobinson, 
Esq., of Egham Lodge, Egham, Surrey; and Walter Ewer, Esq., late 
of the Bengal Civil Service ; were elected Fellows of this Society. 
A paper was read on the Boulder Formation or Drift, and asso- 
ciated freshwater deposits composing the mud cliffs of Eastern 
Norfolk, by Charles Lyell, jun. Esq., F.G.S.* 
The cliffs described in this memoir extend from Happisborough or 
Hasborough lighthouse to near Weybourne, west of Cromer, adistance 
of about twenty miles, and vary in height from sixteen to 400 feet. 
Mr. Lyell first examined them in 1829, and subsequently in 1839; 
and the details given in the paper are the results of the observa- 
tions made during the two visits. The changes produced by the 
destruction of the cliffs, have enabled him to explain some of the 
more complex phenomena presented in the sections exposed in 1829. 
The greater portion of the cliffs consists of the boulder formation or 
drift, which is partly stratified and partly unstratified, and for 
the latter he has adopted the term “till,” employed in Scot- 
land to designate a similar deposit. Other formations are occa- 
sionally exposed, but the whole series is nowhere exhibited in one 
vertical section ; it may however be stated to be composed of the 
following beds, in ascending order :—1.Chalk—2. Norwich crag—3. 
freshwater accumulations with subterranean forests,—and 4. the boul- 
der formation or drift. This line of coast, Mr. Lyell says, is ably 
treated of by Mr. R. C. Taylor (Geology of East Norfolk, 1827) and 
Mr. S. Woodward (Outlines of the Geology of Norfolk, 1833), in 
works, the result of careful personal surveys, and containing original 
observations of great merit. 
1. Chalk.—This formation is occasionally displayed at the foot of 
the cliffs in horizontal beds, but it claims notice more especially on 
account of the masses which protrude from the face of the cliffs 
mear their base, or are enveloped in layers of the drift. Three of 
he more remarkable of these protuberances rise from the beach 
* This memoir is published in the London and Edinburgh Phil. Mag. for 
May 1840. 
VOL. III. \ P 
