fi66 Mr. Lyell on the Boulder Formation, 



in fact it has been brought bodily into its present position. 

 The intercalated masses of unregenerated chalk are some- 

 times horizontal, sometimes vertical. Of the former 1 ob- 

 served an example near West or Upper Runton, where a mass 

 of chalk marl 15 feet thick, which I could not distinguish from 

 undisturbed chalk, reposed on stratified blue clay 20 feet thick, 

 and was again covered by stratified loam 30 feet thick. 



The most remarkable example which 1 saw of a mass of 

 chalk protruding in the midst of the drift adjoins to Old Hythe 

 Gap about three quarters of a mile west of Sherringham : it is 

 represented on a small scale by Mr. R. C. Taylor in his coast 

 section, though nowhere described as far as I am aware. I 

 found the shape of this mass considerably altered between the 

 years 1829 and 1839, and by a comparison of its appearance 

 at these two periods, I was able to form a more correct idea 

 of its relative position to the chalk and drift than 1 could pos- 

 sibly have done during a single visit. In order to understand 

 the peculiar position of this great outlier, the reader must be 

 informed, that the fundamental chalk, which at Cromer does 

 not rise above low water, begins, immediately west of Sherring- 

 ham, to rise and form a ledge a 'iQv^ feet above high-water 

 mark, being usually covered by a iiard breccia of crag, com- 

 monly called the pan, nearly 1 foot thick. The waves at 

 high tides and during storms wash over this ledge, and sweep 

 away the more destructible clay, sand, and gravel of the over- 

 lying drift, which is thus made to recede four or five feet in- 

 ward from the beach or seaward termination of the ledge of 

 chalk. The chalk thus clearly exposed is seen by its hori- 

 zontal layers of flint to be undisturbed. 



The drill sometimes reposes in horizontal and sometimes 

 in curved beds on the pan or ferruginous breccia of crag. At 

 Old Hythe point above mentioned, the beds of drift suddenly 

 become vertical for a height of nearly 70 feet, and flank an 

 enormous pinnacle of chalk between 70 and 80 feet in height, 

 (see fig. 13), which is enveloped in drift. 



in this figure the fundamental chalk is seen at the bottom 

 witli its horizontal flints, and immediately upon the chalk the 

 pan or layer of consolidated crag, continuous in this spot and 

 varying in thickness from 6 to 12 inches. It contains large 

 chalk flints and fragments of shells cemented by oxide of iron. 

 The broken shells are abundant at some spots. Among them 

 were observed Cyvrina islandica, Tellina solidiila, Mya are- 



naria ? Cardiiim , Littorina littorea, Fusus striatus, Ba- 



lanus . Next above the crag is the huge pinnacle or 



needle of chalk, distinctly separated from the fundamental 

 chalk by " the pan." Chalk flints are scattered somewhat 



