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Our knowledge of the later portions of the Pliocene Period is 

 more distinct an 1 definite ; farther changes took place, and the 

 character of the physical geography is gat4iered from the nature 

 of an interesting deposit on the coast of Norfolk called the " Forest 

 Bed." As we examine its contents we feel that we are approaching 

 modern times. Tne southern area of the North Sea had become 

 an extensive plain, covered with forests of spruce and Scotch firs, 

 oaks, beeches and elms, and through it all wandered a large river. 

 Scattered over this plain were numerous shallow lakes, in and on 

 the borders of which grew white and yellow water liUes, pond- 

 weeds such as you see in the ponds on the Warren, Buckbean, ajnd 

 other familiar forms. These meres probably resembled the 

 present Norfolk "Broads," which may in fact be the remnant of 

 Pliocene days. 



Driven by the increasing cold there wandered into Britain from 

 northern and central Asia numerous forms of mammads. most of 

 which, but not all, are now extinct ; ejj. Mastodon, Rhinoceros, 

 Deer, Hipparion (an ancestor of the horse). Elephant, Hippopota- 

 mus, Bear, &c. In the Forest Bed we find remains of Beavers, 

 Voles, Squirrels, Moles, Shrews, Mice, Wolves, Foxes, etc., 

 showing how rapidly we are approachuig modern times — modern, 

 geologically I mean, though according to ordmary reckoning many 

 thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years have passed 

 since then, and many strange changes have yet to be described. 



Au examhiation of the pebbles composing the gravelly portion 

 of the deposit by Mr. C. K'eed shows it to have been laid down by 

 a river, and that these pebbles could not have been brought there 

 from the north or the west, but only from the south and east ; the 

 river therefore could have been no other than the Rhine, the 

 estuary of which in those days was on the coast of our Norfolk 

 and Suffolk as shown on the map. 



No satisfactory traces of Man have as yet been proved to occur in 

 Pliocene deposits. 



We now come to the latest geological period, that known as the 

 Pleistocene, which shades off imperceptibly into the Prehistoric 

 Age by which it is linked on to the Present. It was characterized 

 by several upheavals and subsidences, but more especially by the 

 fact that for part of it at least, all the British tract, in common 

 with the northern portions of Europe and Asia, was reduced to 

 conditions in almost all respects like those prevalent in Greenland 

 at the present time ; this period is known as the Great Ice Age, 

 or the Glacial Period. To this most interesting of all geological 

 epoclis only brief reference can now be made, but we hope to 

 describe it more fully on a future occasion. The marks and signs 

 left behind are unmistakeable and can be read of all men, — ■ 



