﻿386 8. V. Wood, j'un., and F. W. Harmer — 



the forest-bed of Kessingland and the Middle Glacial sands — beds 

 which we say have no existence there ; — but as Mr. Blake expresses 

 an opinion that these forest-beds in situ are undoubtedly identical 

 with similar beds beneath the contorted drift in Corton cliff, and at 

 Hasbro', and Runton on the Cromer coast, we may refer to the paper 

 of his colleague, Mr. Eeid, in which the existence of the forest-bed 

 in situ along that coast is called in question altogether. 



It will be interesting to see the various views of the gentlemen of 

 the Geological Survey brought into the harmony requisite for the 

 Memoir on East Anglian Geology which Mr. Blake promises us. 



With respect to Mr. Reid's paper we would observe : 



Firstly. That the Norwich Crag and Chillesford Clay, which many 

 have found, and some still find, at Weybourne and elsewhere along 

 the Cromer coast, but which we have always contended do not occur 

 there unless concealed beneath the beach, have no place in Mr. Eeid's 

 section. So far, therefore, we agree with him. 



Secondly. That as regards the freshwater bed (No. 3) shown by him 

 to be irregularly interposed between marine sands (2 and 4), Sir 

 Charles Lyell, in his paper on Norfolk in the Phil. Mag. for 1840, 

 showed that the freshwater bed at Runton (which we presume is 

 part of Mr. Reid's No. 3) was both overlain and underlain by marine 

 sands (the lower called Crag by Sir Charles). The improbability of a 

 purely freshwater bed in situ thus occurring as a mere patch, or rather 

 lump, between marine sands without there being any transition into 

 or out of it, raised doubts of its correctness, so that one of us, in his 

 '• Remarks and Map," circulated in 1865, suggested that nothing but 

 a clean vertical section would be conclusive on the point. This 

 section has since been made, and it appears that Sir Charles's repre- 

 sentation was correct. The original difficulty therefore recurs, and 

 the question ai'ises whether this freshwater bed of peaty sandy clay, 

 which is only a thick mass a few yards long, or any other similar 

 patches, are beds in situ or not. Mr. Norton seems to think that 

 much of the long-quoted ' forest-bed ' of the coast is not in situ, and 

 Mr. Reid expresses himself very decidedly as of that opinion. If this 

 should prove to be correct, it might, were it not for Mr. Reid's state- 

 ment that rootlets penetrate the sands, possibly explain the whole 

 matter by showing that some parts of these peats and freshwater 

 and forest remains along the Cromer coast are portions of the pre- 

 glacial land-surface, which were stripped off by ice which formed 

 over it, and were carried with it into the estuary, in the sands of 

 which they became imbedded, in the same way that sheets of chalk, 

 hundreds of feet long, and several feet thick, were stripped off the 

 surface and carried into the Cromer Till just over these sands when, 

 somewhat later, the formation gave place in the same estuary (as we 

 take it) to that of the Till.^ We are sceptical as to whether the in- 



1 We have seen sheets of sandy peat also imbedded in the Till itself near Cromer ; 

 and in the sections of the Norfolk cliff which accompany the " Remarks and Map " 

 circulated by one of us in 1865, the sands in question are about Sidestrand (where 

 Mr. Reid represents his freshwater bed as intercalated between marine sands) 

 described as charged with the debris of the forest bed with freshwater moUusca and 

 peat {It!" of those sections). With the exception of the lump at Kunton, neither of 



