Fisher — Notes on Clacton, 



215 



Just beyond the second groin going from East to West, a layer of 

 muddy clay containing roots of herbaceous plants, immediately be- 

 neath the shingle's foot, is overlaid by a laminated clay with indurated 

 nodules in the' laminations, which appears to mo to oifer a curious 

 instance of quasi cleavage. This laminated clay is full of " sliken- 

 slide," and its peculiar condition seems to be due to some heavy 

 weight, perhaps of a shingle beach, pressing it towards the sea, and 

 by the pressure causing layers of it to become indurated (see Fig. 3). 



Fig. 2. 



tft^^^^jjMs. Wi;;.«>, 



Fig. 3. 



(a) Clay with rootlets. 



(6) Laminated clay with indurated nodules 



parallel to tlie laminations. 

 The arrow shows the probable direction 



of the efficient part of the pressure. 



Some caution is necessary in accepting fossil bones as the pro- 

 duce of the Clacton deposit. Fossil bones are frequently procured off 

 the Essex coast in the process of dredging, and, being sold by the 

 Clacton fishermen, are said to come from Clacton. There is no 

 reason to suppose that some of them may not come from an extension 

 of the deposit (d), and others probably from beds of the same age ; 

 but their different mineral condition will at once show that they have 

 not been obtained immediately from the bed beneath the cliff. The 

 bones from thence, which Mr. Brown deposited in the British 

 Museum, are black and fragile. Those which are dredged are 

 reddish brown, ponderous and strong. This is the condition of most 

 of the dredged bones which I have seen, whether from the Essex, 

 Suffolk, or Norfolk coast. It would be worth while to enquire how 

 their condition of mineralization becomes thus altered, as it appears 

 to be, by the action of sea water. It seems to me probable that the 

 peculiar condition of the rolled bones of the Crag-deposits, which 

 have been derived from older beds, may be accounted for in the 

 same manner. Bones are also obtained from the submarine forest at 

 Clacton, which, unless I am very much mistaken, is of an age long 

 posterior to the deposit (d). This case of the juxtaposition of 

 mammaliferous beds of very different ages is similar to that de- 

 scribed by Mr. Dawkins as occurring at Pagham, on the coast of 

 Sussex.^ 



* Pleistocene Mammalia Palaeont. Vol. xviii., p. 25. 



