ON THE RED CHALK OF ENGLAND. 



11 



Underneath the Red Chalk of Hunstanton occurs a yellow and 

 brown pebbly sandstone, which was formerly supposed to contain no 

 organic remains. Mr. C. B. Rose of Yarmouth, however, has obtained 

 many. 



This bed is termed in those parts "carstone," and much employed as 

 a building-material. The cottages in that neighbourhood and on the 

 road from Lynn seem at a distance as though they had been con- 

 structed of masses of gingerbread, so great is the similarity in colour 

 and appearance. 



The length of the Red Chalk, from end to end, at the Hunstanton 

 Cliff is about 1,000 yards, and its greatest elevation at the point where 

 it attains the top and quits the cliff is thirty-seven feet ; hence its rise 

 is very gradual, since its first appearance is nearly on a level with the 

 beach. 



There are two other things worth observing at Hunstanton. One is 

 the lighthouse, which is upon the dioptric principle, the light being 

 transmitted out to sea by means of glass prisms instead of the ordinary 

 metal reflectors ; and the other is a vestige of a raised sea-beach on 

 the cliffs composed of rounded fragments of White and Red Chalk 

 immediately reposing on the greensand. It is situated at the south- 

 ward of the point where the Red Chalk crops out. 



We will now, if you please, quit Hunstanton, and proceed towards 

 Lynn, keeping in the neighbourhood of the coach-road. 



Jf we could dig up the ground when we were within eight or nine 

 miles of Lynn, we should still see our old companion at our feet, for 

 the Red Chalk has been recognised at the villages of Ingoldsthorpe 

 and Dersingham. 



We shall soon meet it no more. At Leziate, a little to the north- 

 east of Lynn, it becomes extinct. Mr. C. B. Rose, who always thought 

 the Red Chalk would prove to be the equivalent of the gault, and 

 who argued from the evidence of fossils and from the direction of 

 the outcrops that the true gault and the Red Chalk must ultimately 

 meet, — Mr. Rose, I say, has informed me that he has observed the Red 

 Chalk and the gault incorporated together at Leziate. Henceforward 

 to the south the Red Chalk is no more seen. 



Thus, then, we have come to the termination of our journey. We 

 have noted the beginning and the ending of the Red Chalk, we have 



