Vol. 56.] MR. F. W. HAEMEE ON THE CRAG OF ESSEX. 7^9 



containing them were subsequently reconstructed, it removes the 

 difficulty of supposing that animals of an older and southern type, 

 such as Mastodon, lived in this country, not only during the 

 Coralline and Red Crag Periods, but during that of the Norwich 

 Crag also, co-existing with the comparatively modern molluscan 

 fauna of the latter, and with arctic shells like Astarte borealis, 

 Cardium grcenlandicum, and Tettina lata. On the other hand, no 

 remains of this pachyderm have been found in the closely connected 

 estuarine (Forest-bed) deposits of the Cromer coast, although the 

 great river to which these were due drained an area far south of 

 Great Britain. 1 There is indeed no more evidence for the existence 

 of Mastodon in England during any part of the Crag era, than for 

 that of Hipparwn, or of the Eocene Hyracotherium, the fossil 

 remains of which are found with it in the nodule-beds. 2 



1 PrestAvich believed that most of the mammalian remains which occur in 

 the Red Crag are derivative, ' Geology ' vol. ii (1888) p. 422. 



2 The theory of the existence of Mastodon in England daring the Icenian 

 (Norwich Crag) Period rests principally on the alleged discovery of the entire 

 skeleton of that animal at Horstead, Norfolk, in 1820; see H. B. Woodward, 

 Mem. Geol. Surv. (1881) ' Norwich 'p. 57. 



Nearly forty years ago I visited Horstead with my friend the Rev. John Gamn, 

 for the purpose of investigating the matter on the spot, and came away with a 

 strong opinion that the evidence in its favour was of the most unsatisfactory 

 character. All that could be proved was that a number of bones had been 

 found on the surface of the Chalk, which (we were told) were taken away on a 

 cart ; but they were not submitted to the examination of any competent observer. 

 Some time after, a single tooth, said to have been that of Mastodon, and 

 to have been obtained at the same time, found its way, at second hand, into 

 the possession of the Rev. James Layton of Catfield, a village 8 miles from 

 Horstead, and upon this one specimen, and some subsequent hearsay statemen s 

 of the workmen, the story of the supposed discovery has been founded. A 

 railway-truck, however, rather than a cart would have been required to remove 

 the skeleton of such an animal, or any considerable part of it. At that time 

 excavations were being made at right angles to the River Bure, and extending 

 some way back from it, of the size and form of a deep railway-cutting, to 

 enable barges to pass from the river to obtain chalk. There was no cart-road 

 by the side of these canals, so far as I remember, but only a small footpath . 

 Sections of Chalk, covered by thick beds of Cragsand, were exposed in this way 

 the quarrymen removing a few feet of the latter at a time, so as to uncover a 

 narrow shelf of the Chalk just sufficient for them to work on. Had the 

 skeleton of a great pachyderm been present, ' lying on its side ' as stated , it 

 would have taken many months to have got it out, as the cuttings were 

 carried back but slowly, and the Vicar of Catfield would have had every 

 opportunity of seeing some part of it in situ. It seems clear that when he 

 visited Horstead, which he says he did 'at the first opportunity,' all traces of 

 the alleged discovery had been removed. It is perhaps worthy of notice that 

 no mention is made of the finding of tusks, which, even if decayed, would 

 certainly have attracted attention, or of more than one tooth. No skeleton of 

 any vertebrate, or even a portion of one, has ever been recorded from the Norwich 

 Crag, the mammalian remains met with in that deposit being fragmentary, 

 and, as a rule, worn. Specimens of the teeth of Mastodon have occurred at 

 other places at the base of the Norwich, as of the Red and Coralline Crags, 

 and the Horstead case has, I submit, neither more nor less evidential value 

 than the rest. The want of correspondence between the terrestrial mammalian 

 fauna of the Forest-bed and that of the stone-bed at the base of the Norwich 

 Crag, is, I think, worthy of notice. Out of more than 40 species enumerated in 

 Mr. E. T. Newton's list from the former (excluding doubtful identifications) and 

 12 from the latter, only 4 are common to both. 



