24 William Whitaker—The Red Chalk of Norfolk. 
the White Chalk) is linked to the top bed of the Red Chalk, surely 
we may as well put it the other way up, and look on the top bed of 
the Red as linked to the bottom of the White. From my own obser- 
vations, I think it an untenable view to regard the sponge-bed as 
being Upper Greensand, or even Chalk Marl. How the Hunstanton 
Rock, which is only four feet thick, can have the slightest pretence 
to be “the most perfect exhibition of the Upper Greensand that is 
known,” J cannot see; but then, being a field geologist, | cannot 
look on the subject from a purely paleontological point of view: 
besides, too, even my comparative blindness in this matter does not 
hinder me from seeing that Upper Greensand species are not remark- 
able for their great abundance in the Red Rock, whilst Gault species 
are plentiful, and Chalk species not rare. 
I can find no good reasons given for the opinion of Mr. Rose’ 
and others that the sponge-bed, the base of the White Chaik at 
Hunstanton, should be classed as Upper Greensand. Its fossils are 
not quoted as showing this, neither does its lithological character 
help, for it is simply chalk. The idea seems indeed to have been 
put forward for the purpose of satisfying the strange greed for corre- 
lation that possesses the souls of geologists! Under the Chalk there 
ought to be Upper Greensand, and under that Gault; so if we 
cannot see anything like these, we must needs worry about to find 
something that may be taken as representing them ! 
With reference to Prof. Judd’s remark that all paleeontologists 
who have examined the subject regard our red rock as not newer 
than Upper Greensand, and perhaps as being of the age of the 
Gault,” I would say that the question is by no means one to be 
decided by an appeal to fossils alone, and. even if it were, I fail to 
see how such a conclusion could logically be got at, for it utterly 
ignores the large number of Chalk fossils that occur in the red 
rock. 
The same remark as made above to the correlation of the sponge- 
bed with Upper Greensand applies also to Mr. Wiltshire’s corre- 
lation of the next bed of the White Chalk (the Inoceramus-bed) with 
the Chalk Marl, in his paper of 1869.’ Nothing, as far as I can 
see, but the presumed necessity of getting in Chalk Marl somewhere 
in the section, justifies this. Against another remark of the same 
cbserver I must raise my voice in protest, and the more so as it is 
one of a kind not by any means peculiar to him, alas! but common 
to most geologists, to the effect that “if the Folkestone section be 
taken as typical of English Gault,” ete. What right have we thus 
to limit Nature, and of what avail can be our attempts to fix her to 
our so-called types? Is there any reason to expect that Nature, the 
ever-varying, should deposit a world-wide mass of clay, 100 feet 
thick or so, and with certain shells in it, just because she has done 
so at Folkestone, or any other place? And if Nature has been 
bountiful enough not to treat us in this monotonous way, but to 
1 Geol. Mag. Vol. IV. p. 30 (1867), and his earlier papers, Phil. Mag. 
? Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxiv. p. 223 (1868). 
3 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxv. p. 184. 
