PEESTWICfi:— CRA&-BECS 01 StrFFOlK AND NOEPOLE:. 46l 



of sand, and iron-sand, with fragments of wood, and flint-pebbles, 

 together with clay-jpebbles of the destroyed bed, which latter are 

 in places so nnmerons as almost to hide its reconstructed character. 

 Immediately over this clay-bed is another series of sands and 

 shingle " 5," which are often fossiliferous ; and when the clay- 

 bed is wanting, it is difficult to draw a line of demarcation between 

 the two series, especially as the fossils themselves, with the ex- 

 ception chiefly that the Tellina balthica is far more abundant, do not 

 show any very marked difference. The shells I have found are : — - 



Cardium edule. Mytilus edulis. 

 Cypi'ina islandica. 



Leda lanceolata. Purpura lapillua. 



Mya arenaria. Littorina littorea, 



Tellina balthica. rudis. 



obliqua. 



These, however, are, I believe, far from representing the fauna of 

 this bed, which is undergoing, I understand, in the hands of the 

 Messrs. Searles Wood, a thorough examination. The importance 

 to be attached to these beds does not arise so much from their ex- 

 hibition here, as from the circumstance that they wiU serve to 

 determine the position and age of beds of sand and gravel, gene- 

 rally without fossils, which have a wide range in the south-east of 

 England, and the exact position of which it is important to know 

 in consequence of their bearing on many interesting problems con- 

 nected with the denudation of the country. These beds, which over- 

 lie the Chillesford Clay and the Forest-bed, and are succeeded by 

 the lower division of the Boulder-clay, I propose to designate the 

 " Westletou Sands and Shingle." 



As, however, some uncertainty may be considered to attach to the 

 clay which we have referred in Norfolk to the Chillesford beds, on 

 account of the absence of fossils and the presence also of laminated 

 clays in the overlying beds, we prefer to commence our observations 

 in a district where both the Chillesford Clay and the Crag- sands are 

 distinctly developed, and where the relation of the several groups 

 to one another is more clearly determined. 



The "Westleton Sands and Shingle. 



Between Yoxford and Dunwich there rises, just above the village 

 of Westleton, a ridge of low hills largely excavated at that spot for 

 sand and gravel. Nowhere, except on the north-west of Henham 

 Park, are these shingle-beds so largely developed. They attain a 

 thickness of from 30 to 40 feet, and consist of a series of stratified 

 beds of well-rounded flint-pebbles imbedded in white sand, and with 

 two or three subordinate beds of light- coloured clay. They look 

 more like the pebble-beds of Blackheath than any other beds in the 

 eastern counties. Mixed with the flint-pebbles are a few small 

 pebbles of old rocks, with a considerable number of white quartz- 

 pebbles, the presence of which constitutes a distinctive feature of 

 these beds throughout their range. No fossils are found here, and 

 no other beds are exposed. Elsewhere this series is generally not 



