o20 Reports and Proceedings. 



question with me as to wliether it belonged to recent river forma- 

 tions or to the older beds of the Middle Drift. Erom observations on 

 this spot, and also in Irstead, where T have excavated to the depth of 

 ten feet, and found what appears to be the same deposit beneath 

 sand and gravel, I incline to the opinion that this bed is of the 

 older series, down to which the valley was sunk, and which formed 

 the land on which the forest gi-ew. 



The trees of this forest appear to have been thrown down by 

 winds or floods, and to have become imbedded in the tuxbary, which 

 is, in many places, twenty feet deep, and which extensively covers 

 this bed. The oak resembles the Irish bog oak ; it will take a good 

 pohsh, and is very durable, even when exposed to the air. 



With respect to fossil remains, I have not succeeded in finding 

 any, except some bones of a large bird (taken from the sand im- 

 mediately above the Forest-bed, and which might be part of the 

 valley deposits), and also the jaw of a small carnivorous animal. 



On this clayey bed rests a turf deposit, of varying depth — 

 shallow at the sides of the valley, and generally deeper in the centre. 

 In this human bones are not unfrequently found (about eighteen fine 

 specimens of old British skulls were taken from a stai the- dyke, 

 opposite to the one I have already mentioned), and bones of the deer, 

 horse, and ox are not uncommon. Hazel-nuts are frequent, and 

 their immature growth seems to mark the period of the year at 

 which they were imbedded. 



With respect to the age of these deposits, the clayey bed — if it 

 belongs to the Middle Drift — would precede any deposit in which 

 relics of man have as yet come to light. With respect to the 

 peat formation, it may be regarded as one of the most recent prior to 

 the historic period. The first vestiges of man, as yet fiilly ascer- 

 tained, appear in the oldest of the valley gravels and lacustrine beds. 

 From this peat, which in part filled up the valley after it was 

 hollowed out, querns and celts have been taken, and a bronze spear- 

 head (placed in the Norwich Museum by Mr. Cooke) is supposed 

 to have belonged to it. 



Besides the growth of peat, that of estuarine and fluviatile mud 

 may be added, which is from year to year accumulating wherever 

 the water overflows the land and leaves its sediment. This, in our 

 Norfolk broads or lakes, is frequently found to be ten or twenty feet 

 in depth ; but, I believe, not an instance can be shown in which 

 shells are absent from it; and this appears to me to mark the 

 character of the clayey bed as not being a member of the river 

 valley formation, but of the Middle Drift age. I am not, however, 

 confident on this point, for want of sufiicient data. 



A communication was next read from Mr. Searles V. Wood, junr., 

 having reference to " the deposits of the old estuary of the Yare," 

 described by Mr. Prestwich as covering the London Clay at Yar- 

 mouth, and which were penetrated in a well-boring at Lacon's 

 Brewery, — the report of which is deferred. 



