358 Forest Bed. 



Suffolk. They are, in fact, often so far buried under 

 superficial strata that they require to be looked for, 

 and the whole country being flat they do not at all 

 affect the scenery, excepting in a minor way in the 

 coast cliffs. Physically they chiefly indicate a certain 

 amount of submergence and subsequent emergence in 

 late times, before the epoch of the Forest bed, and that 

 is all, for, as already frequently insisted on, we are not to 

 consider Great Britain as having always been an 

 island during and between the periods that I have 

 already described. It is an accident that it is now an 

 island ; and it has been islands many times, and an 

 island more than once before, and in many shapes. 

 When I describe other periods, still later than the Crag, 

 we shall be able to understand a little more definitely 

 the precise kind of changes that our land in latter days 

 has undergone. 



Younger than the Crag there are certain other 

 minor deposits, portions of which are scattered here 

 and there throughout England. One of the most 

 remarkable, the 'Forest bed,' lies underneath the 

 glacial deposits on the shore, at Cromer, in Norfolk. 

 This minor formation has been traced for some distance 

 between high and low water mark. It consists of dark 

 sandy clay, with plants, above which there is a band of 

 coarse gravel, containing the remains of elephants, &c., 

 then bands of clay and gravel, with marine and fresh- 

 water shells and fragments of wood. The plants 

 noticed in the Forest bed are : Pinus sylvestris 

 (Scotch fir), Abies excelsa (a Pine), Taxus baccata 

 (Yew), Prunus spinosa (Sloe), Menycinthes trifoliata 

 (Buckbean), Quercus (Oak), Alnus (Alder), Nymphcea 

 alba (Water-lily), Nuphar lutea (Yellow Water-lily), 

 Ceratophyllum demersum (Horn-wort), and Potamo- 



