﻿Correspondence — Rev. 0. Fisher. 479 



In trutli, as Mr. Bonney has pointed out, the cirque form is the 

 natural termination of a valley cut back far into the hills ; and I 

 think it might almost be said that the farther a valley is carried 

 back amongst hard rocks, the more cirque-like does its termination 

 become; rounded hollows certainly do occur at the head of such 

 valleys, and these might even become broadly subcircular, if the 

 lateral streams happened to be stronger than the terminal. 



Finally, are not cirques more rationally accounted for in this way, 

 than by crediting glaciers with the curious " tooth-drawing " pro- 

 pensity which Mr. Helland suggests, and thus investing them with 

 even more wonderful powers than have yet been claimed for them 

 by the most devoted glacialists ? A. J. Jukes Bkowne. 



H.M. Geological Survey, Spilsby. 



FOEEST-BED AT HAPPISBURGH. 



SiK, — I am glad to see that a discussion has arisen in your pages, 

 which may lead to a more strict inquiry into the age and position of 

 the portion of a submerged forest at Happisburgh, or Hasbro. If I 

 recollect rightly, upon my first visit to Norfolk, Mr. Gunn took 

 me to the spot, and told me that the Forest-bed (meaning the pre- 

 glacial one) was usually to be seen open here, but only occasionally 

 so at other places on the coast. I at that time collected some fir- 

 cones from it. 



At a subsequent visit I thought that the Boulder-clay passed under 

 it, although I could not perceive what the actual superposition was. 

 For I could trace the Boulder-clay to the edge of the foreshore, very 

 close up to the Forest-bed ; and there was no indication of those 

 " laminated beds " of sand and gravel, which intervene between the 

 Cromer Forest-bed and the glacial series. I therefore concluded that 

 the deposit at Happisburgh was not a continuation of the Cromer bed. 



Mr. Gunn, in a paper, which he read at Norwich in the spring of 

 1868, remarked upon this bed, and seemed to think it was not 

 exactly coeval with the Cromer bed, but belonged to an upper 

 portion of it, " which remained dry land on the partial submersion 

 of the subsiding forest." He likewise referred to the absence of the 

 " laminated beds." He also stated that " metatarsal bones of sheep 

 or the goat were discovered here by Mr. William Haughton. The 

 elephants had at that period died off from the increasing cold." 

 Now the goat is not included in the list of mammals belonging to 

 the Cromer bed as given by Prof. Dawkins at p. 41 7 of the Quart. 

 Journ. Geol. Soc. ; nor I believe is it usually known to occur in 

 the earlier Quaternary formations. If then the determination of 

 that genus be correct, it is rather an argument on pal^ontological 

 grounds for a later date for the Happisburgh deposit. 



It is of some importance that its true age should be settled, 

 because the vegetable remains from it have been much relied upon 

 as indicating the climate of the Cromer forest period, which possibly 

 may after all be different. Cannot the true relations of the " hard " 

 clay in which the trees are rooted be determined by digging a pit of 

 sufficient size, so as to find out on what the Forest-bed really rests ? 



