496 SIR H. H. HOWORTH ON THE SHINGLE-BEDS [Aug. 1895, 



36. On the Shingle-beds of Eastern East Anglia. By Sir Henry 

 H. Ho worth, E.C.I.E., M.P., E.R.S., E.G.S. (Read April 

 24th, 1895.) 



These "well-known beds have been variously named the "Westleton 

 Beds, the Bure Yalley Beds, and Pebbly Beds. Their centre of 

 distribution and focus, however, is near Southwold, and they might 

 well have been called the Southwold Beds. The following remarks 

 are limited entirely to the actual beds of pebbles as they are dis- 

 played in Eastern Norfolk and Suffolk, where they have been studied 

 and described by Prestwich, Whitaker, and others. 



First a few words about the recent strand. This consists of 

 shingle precisely like that in the cliff-sections. A fact about it which 

 has not apparently been hitherto noted is that this shingle on the 

 beach travels in and out, not with the wind, but against the wind. 

 Thus during easterly gales the whole strand is free from stones, 

 while in westerly winds the pebbles are again piled up. So far as 

 we know, there is no shingle like this anywhere on the bed of the 

 ■German Ocean. Wherever it came from, therefore, it cannot have 

 oome from the east. As a matter of fact, it is obviously the pro- 

 duct of the disintegration of the cliffs. 



The cliffs on this coast are really the truncated ends of a series 

 of promontories projecting from the main plateau of the county and 

 fringed round by low land. It is from these truncated promon- 

 tories, which are capped with similar pebbles, and from these alone, 

 that the shingle on the beach has been derived, and not from a 

 general erosion of the coast. 



It seems plain, from their present contour and from the fact that 

 the sea is everywhere encroaching on this coast, that these promon- 

 tories were quite recently intact, and not cut back as we now see 

 them. This is again shown by the fact that the pebbles on the strand 

 are virtually identical in size with those in the cliffs. If they had 

 been triturated for any length of time they would have been ground 

 into gravel of smaller stones. 



It is therefore evident that the strand is quite a recent one. 

 Before the cutting back of the promontories took place the whole 

 strand was doubtless sandy and muddy, and the high tides, not 

 having such powerful chisels and hammers combined, as are formed 

 by shingle-beds, would not be such powerful erosive agents, so that 

 it seems to follow that the present rate of erosion of the cliffs is 

 much more rapid than it was in former times. 



Let us now turn from the daughter-shingle on the beach to the 

 mother-shingle on the cliffs. Its composition has been described by 

 Prof. Prestwich and others, and I cannot improve on their descrip- 

 tion, which I need hardly say has been confirmed by every observation 

 that I have been able to make. Prestwich says of it, ' The shingle 



