T. Mellard Reade—The Cromer Forest Bed. 223 
generally from one to three feet from the stem, and the ends are 
either rounded or frayed out,” He mentions one stool, however, in 
which the roots extended 9 feet in one direction and 11 feet in the 
other, or over a circle of 20 feet in diameter; this, however, was 
not considered satisfactory, nor was the case of interlacing roots 
figured in p. 24. ; 
Of course it is not possible for me, nor is it my object to call in 
question the accuracy of the information given, but 1 may observe 
that it is very difficult to dig up and thoroughly observe in such 
eases all the complicated ramifications of roots and rootlets, and that 
one example of a tree in situ would upset all the negative arguments 
relied upon in the memoir. 
But there are some general considerations open to all who choose 
to read the published information on the subject even in the memoir 
itself, to enable them to form their own opinions. Leaving out of 
account for the present some of the special cases of prostrate stools, 
and stools and drift wood at different horizons in the estuarine series 
or “ Forest Bed,” we may ask what river at the present day brings 
down the stools of trees with the trunks cut off or broken off at a 
certain average level, floats them down, roots and all (even though 
frayed), and plants them erect upon a shore so as to deceive geolo- 
gists into the belief that they had grown there? If the trees grew 
on the banks of a large river as suggested by Mr. Reid and were 
undermined by it and floated away, I venture to think they would 
have come down trunk and broken roots complete—if I may be 
permitted the Hibernianism—and have been invariably deposited 
prostrate. I have considerable doubts if a stool alone with roots 
and earth attached would float, more probably it would be rolled 
-along the bottom. But it would be a nice calculation of probabilities, 
assuming properly prepared stools existed on the river banks, to find 
out what proportion would be stranded erect. The idea is altogether 
too far-fetched to commend itself to the average mind. 
Perhaps, however, the following circumstance will help to explain 
some of the difficulties. Although the stools of the Post-Glacial 
trees are undoubtedly where they have grown, when found embedded 
in peat, in some cases they have been washed out of the peat bed, 
by its destruction in stormy weather, and pushed along the shore 
erect on the platform of roots and re-embedded in sand and silt. It 
is, however, curious, how few are treated in this way;—-the majority 
get washed out to sea and lost. I can, however, conceive conditions 
in which the removal and replanting may have occurred with greater 
frequency. 
It is noticeable in the examples of sections given in the memoir 
that the stools are often found along with a bed of clay-pebbles and 
pholas-bored peat, such pebbles or boulders also arise from the - 
destruction of the Post-Glacial beds underlying the peat and forest 
bed on this coast, and pieces of pholas-bored peat are also met with.! 
If the “ Forest Bed” were formed in this way, it must now be in 
the immediate vicinity of the place where it grew, and must have 
1 Grou. Maa. 1878, p. 571—“‘ Clay Boulders.”’ 
