Oorrespondence—Dr. A. G'. Nathorst—Mr. T. Mellard Reade. 287 
Mr. Keeping might be quite right that it cannot be a worm trail. 
But, to conclude from the poor specimen hitherto described, its mode 
of branching is so very unlike that of a true plant, that it seems very 
difficult to believe that it should be of vegetable origin—at least 
until better specimens should have proved it. Concerning Butho- 
trephis major, its different modes of occurrence (usually “as a delicate 
impression, or as half-compressed solid bodies,” sometimes upright 
in the sediment, ‘when the circular sections and tip end of the 
branches come to resemble rain pittings”’) harmonizes so perfectly 
with the branched trails and burrows of some annelids—which now 
creep on the surface of the mud, now make burrows in it—that there 
is no reason why that object should be regarded as something else. 
And Mr. Keeping has failed to give any satisfactory statement to 
prove its true plant-nature. Lastly, as to Myrianites Lapworth, it 
might perhaps in some cases be convenient that such bodies should 
have their names, but it ought not to be forgotten that the specific 
value of such a name is nil. 
SrockHOoLM, a G. NaTHORST. 
CHALK MASSES IN THE CROMER DRIFT. 
Sir,—To properly deal with all the questions raised by Mr. 
Searles Wood’s letter in the May Number of the GurotocicaL 
Magazine, would be more than is possible within the limits of a 
letter. I may, however, be permitted to observe that if the Chalk 
Masses, in which term I include the whole, whether of solid or 
reconstructed chalk, from the western side of the Wolds of Central 
Lincolnshire, as supposed by Mr. Wood, it ought to be possible to 
trace them up their origin through a train of such blocks. Has Mr. 
Wood done this ? 
There is no difficulty whatever as regards levels in the derivation 
of the great mass of Chalk Boulders in the Cromer Drift from the 
Norfolk Chalk. To use a harmless expression, it seems like “ taking 
coals to Newcastle ” to bring chalk boulders from Lincolnshire into 
Norfolk. But it is far from me to deny the possibility of such an 
origin, if sufficient evidence were adduced in its favour, which I 
venture to think has not yet been done. Mr. Wood, to say the least, 
is peculiar in his view that all the large masses are not genuine, but 
‘reconstructed ” chalk. In this opinion I differ from him along 
with some pretty good authorities, both old and new. Does he 
affirm that the Old Hythe Pinnacle of Chalk, from 70 to 80 ft. high, 
figured by Sir Chas. Lyell, was of “ reconstructed ” material, or— 
what can be tested at the present moment—that the boulder figured 
in my paper (page 281) is not of solid chalk, or that those shown in 
Clement Reid’s careful survey section are not genuine? In con- 
elusion, I may add that whatever may be the exact locality or locali- 
ties of the Chalk Cliffs to which the boulders may eventually be 
traced, it cannot invalidate my reasoning as to the mode in which 
they have been quarried, detached, rafted off, and stranded. 
May 5, 1883. T. Mrntiarp READE. 
