454 S. B. Woodward — The Biire Valley and Wedleton Beds. 



I have united them under the more comprehensive name of the 

 '• Norwich Crag Series."^ 



The grounds on which Messrs. Wood and Harmer separated the 

 Bare Valley Crag from the Norwich Crag have proved to be unsound. 

 The Bure Valley Crag is palEeontologically identical with the Wey- 

 hourn Crag, as they originally pointed out. Both beds contain the 

 Tellina Balthica. But as my colleague Mr. C. Keid has shown, the 

 Weybourn zone is to be traced at the base of the Forest Bed Series, 

 at Sherringham and other places ; whereas another bed, at a higher 

 horizon, since called the " Leda-myalis bed " by Mr. Eeid, was also 

 con-elated by Messrs. Wood and Harmer with the Bure Valley Beds.^ 

 Thus we have a fossiliferous zone at the top, and another at the base 

 of the " Forest Bed Series," both of which have been called the Bure 

 Valley Beds ; and this is the reason why some observers have stated 

 that the Norwich Crag overlies the Forest Bed of Cromer, while 

 others have maintained that the Crag underlies it. The true fossili- 

 ferous Bure Valley Zone, however, as just stated, occurs at the base 

 of the Forest Bed Series, and is represented by the Weybourn Crag. 

 The Tellina Balthica thus occurs beneath beds which Messrs. Wood 

 and Harmer have grouped as " Pre-glacial," and their argument that 

 this shell is confined to Glacial and more recent deposits loses all 

 weight.'' Their argument, too, that the Bure Valley Beds are in 

 places interbedded with the Cromer Till, likewise disappears, when 

 it is seen that the Bure Valley Beds occupy this lower horizon on 

 the coast. For the same reason, also, the Mundesley and Westleton 

 Beds, identified by Prof. Prestwich on the Cromer coast, are not the 

 same as the Bure Valley Beds inland. 



In his address to the Norwich Geological Society (1880) my 

 colleague Mr. J. H. Blake has retained the use of the term " Bure 

 Valley Beds " for the upper zone on the coast before mentioned — 

 the Leda-myalis bed.* This is unfortunate, especially as he admits 

 the Weybourn Crag (the Bure Valley Beds proper) to be part of the 

 Norwich Crag. Amid such confusion of terms I should fear in the 

 end that (as with the Chillesford Clay), there would after all be no 

 Bure Valley Beds in the Bure Valley ! 



Another reason given by Messrs. Wood and Harmer for separating 

 the Bure Valley Beds from the true Crag, was that at Henham and 

 other places in Suffolk, these beds rested unconformably upon the 

 Chillesford Beds beneath. We now come to the critical point. The 

 question arises, Are the Westleton Beds of Westleton the same as the 

 Bure Valley Beds of the Bure Valley ? I do not believe they are. 



The Bure Valley Beds may be traced southwards from the Bure 

 Valley, across the valley of the Yare into the valley of its little 

 tributary the Chet, at Sizeland, Mundham St. Peter, and Burgh 



^ Geology of England and "Wales, 1876 ; Geology of the Country around Norwich 

 (Geol. Survey), 1881. 



2 See Geol. Mag. Dec. II. Vol. IV. p. 300, Vol. VII. p. 548, Vol. VIII. p. 382. 



3 Proc. Norwich Geol. Soc. vol. i. pp. 48, 142. 



* Proc. Norwich Geol. Soc. vol. i, pp. 150, 169; see also C. Eeid, Geol. Mag. 

 Dec. II. Vol. VIII. p. 382. 



