Correspondence — Mr. S. S. JSoicorth. 573 



organic remains. A post-glacial forest-bed occurs at Holm Scarf, off 

 the Norfolk Coast, and may plainly be seen at low water. It is a bed 

 of peat in which trunks of trees are imbedded. It was in one of 

 these trunks that Mr. Edwards found a flint implement sticking. 



Within the last few days I have come upon the remains of another 

 submerged forest or peat-bed at Bawdsey, near Felixstowe. It is 

 only visible and accessible at low-water spring-tides, and even then 

 it is seen sloping down into the sea. The cliffs at Bawdsey are 

 formed of London Clay, capped by Eed Crag, and they do not waste 

 so rapidly as many other parts of this coast. The London Clay 

 forms the bed of the sea, except near the northern side of the estuary 

 of the Deben. There we find the peat-bed, resting directly on the 

 London Clay. It is about four or five feet thick at its thickest part, 

 but it has evidently been very much denuded, and is now merely a 

 relic of what it once was. Eemains of trees are not plentiful in it 

 and the peat contains an abundance of fresh- water and marsh plants, 

 but I found no fresh-water shells. The only animal remains I ob- 

 tained are the upper part of the skull and horn-cores of Bos longi- 

 frons, but I was told that bones had frequently been washed out of 

 it. Among the plants a species of Cyperiis was abundant, and 

 SpJiagmim was also plentiful. Indeed, the nature of the peat-bed 

 indicates its formation under just such marshy conditions as geolo- 

 gists have assumed the bed of the German Ocean to have been in 

 before the submergence took place which brought the sea-water 

 over it, and so converted England into an island. 



The discovery of this remnant of a once extensive peat-bed un- 

 covered only in part even at extreme low-water spring-tides, is 

 therefore interesting as confirming the geological speculations con- 

 cerning the old marshy plain over which the German Ocean now 

 extends. J. E. Taylor. 



EEPLT TO ME. ALFEED TTLOE. 

 Sir, — Mr. Alfred Tylor complains that being dissatisfied with 

 certain views of some prominent geologists, I have " ready a theory 

 of my own to meet all the difficulties of the student of Quaternary 

 Geology." My role I am afraid is much more humble. It is true 

 that I have spent much time in trying to unravel the difficulties of 

 the surface beds of Western Europe, and have found, as Mr. Tylor 

 no doubt has, that almost every student of them has a different 

 theory. It is true also that, disagreeing with the many and contra- 

 dictory views that have been pi'opounded, I have tried (I hope in 

 deferential language) to show why they seem incompetent to explain 

 the facts, and having done so have propounded another view ; but I 

 neither claim for this conclusion that it explains all possible diffi- 

 culties, nor that it is necessarily a final view. I do not believe in 

 final views in Science. Every one of us is as a fly on a plate in 

 view of the advancing tide of Knowledge, and we can do no more 

 than frame an hypothesis that shall meet the facts accumulated up 

 to the time when we write. To-morrow a child may find a fresh 

 fact which will not fit our theory. That theory must thereupon go 



