Norivick Geological Society. 561 



the Norwich Crag shells, he would have known them instantly. 

 For his own part, he thought Mr. Wood's difficulties were easily- 

 answered. The water-level was always permanent, that of the land 

 was not. The land was upheaved to a great extent, and then the valley 

 was scooped out, and subsequently going down again, was silted up. 

 Mr. Harmer said Mr. Wood's difficulty was that a vast period of 

 time must have elapsed while the 170 feet was being silted up. The 

 President remarked that it must be considered they were speaking 

 of a time when rivers were stopped up with ice, and when tons of 

 materials were rapidly brought down the streams, much more rapidly 

 than now. 



The President then read a report " On an Excursion to Gorton 

 and Hopton." The verjr contradictory opinions expressed in the 

 Geological Magazine respecting the number and position of the 

 Boulder-clays in Norfolk and Suffolk appear to render it desirable 

 that the geologists, who maintain such different views, should for a 

 time rest their pens and use their eyes. In accordance with this 

 impression, an excursion of the Norwich Geological Society was 

 fixed for September 19th, and the members met on the beach at 

 Gorton, in Suffolk. It was very satisfactory on the day of excursion 

 to find the beach cleared of shingle, and the "red loam," as Mr. 

 Wood calls it, exposed about two miles in extent. Six small boulders 

 of granite and trap-rock, besides flints, several of them polished and 

 scratched, were taken out of it. The bed varied in thickness from 

 four feet to twelve feet, and was at very different levels, sometimes 

 dipping below the beach, and in one instance, near Hopton, up- 

 heaved about ten feet. It is unstratified and, in the opinion of the 

 members present, corresponds with the Lower Boulder-clay at 

 Happisburgh in every respect except colour. The position is pre- 

 cisely the same between the laminated series and the Middle Drift. 

 The extensive beds of gravel above may suggest the cause of this 

 change of colour. 



On this excursion not only was this Boulder-clay seen to be exposed 

 at the base of the cliffs, but in many places four and five feet, and 

 in one place, where an upheaval had taken place, about fifteen feet 

 of the laminated series. The forest bed, also, was seen peeping out. 

 Besides the beds beneath the Lower Boulder-clay, the Middle and 

 the Upper Drift were seen to advantage, and large masses of septaria 

 in the Upper Boulder-clay. What was most imexpected was the 

 range and depth of the Post-glacial sands and gravels above the 

 Upper Drift, which promise the discovery of flint implements, and 

 other relics of the early occupation of man. 



Geologists' Association, University College, London. — The 

 session commenced on Friday, the 1st, with a paper by the Eev. 

 Thomas Wiltshire, M.A., F.G.S., '' On the Chief Groups of the 

 Cephalopoda." The author having given a definition of the forms of 

 life to which the term Cephalopoda is restricted, proceeded to divide 

 the class into the two great orders of the D/'bnmchiata and the Tetra- 

 hranchiata : the common Cuttle-fish and the Pearly Nautilus being 



VOL. XV. — NO. XLII 36 



