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and their relative position in point of time, he proceeded to describe the 
various beds in detail. He said — 
The whole of the strata with which we have to do are based upon the 
London clay. 
First is the red crag. This is the oldest deposit of the Pliocene beds. It 
is composed of quartzose sand, and both it and its fossils are distinguished 
by their peculiar red colour. It is only about forty feet in thickness, but 
has been subjected to great denudation. 
As a warning to Geologists not always to consider the fossils found in a 
deposit as having existed during its formation, I would state that at 
Bramerton I picked up numbers of the little Potamides so well known in the 
Isle of Wight. My first impression was, that the bed was Miocene, until a 
further consideration brought me to the conclusion that the sand banks 
would naturally be the receptacles of dead shells. Besides this, in many 
parts of the red crag, phosphatic nodules, occur, which contain crustaceans and 
fishes washed out of the London clay beneath. 
Between the red crag and the next, or Norwich crag, are found two clay 
beds, one at Bridlington, in Yorkshire, and the other at Chillisford, in 
Norfolk. Although so far apart, they are of the same age. 
The Norwich mammaliferous crag comes next. It is a nuviomarine deposit 
of shelly sand and gravel. It is very rich in organic remains, especially 
mammalian. Near Cromer the Norwich crag lies directly on the chalk, and 
is well seen between that place and Weybourne. The list of its fossil 
mollusca contains as many as eighty-nine per cent, of existing forms. 
A very fine section of the beds was made at Bramerton, for the use of the 
British Association. About three feet of the red crag was at the base, and 
the Norwich crag immediately above it, containing two thick beds of shell, 
each six or seven feet thick. 
Above the Norwich crag lay the forest bed of Cromer. This ancient 
forest bed is now buried and covered up by the Norfolk drift. To this 
formation the names boulder clay or glacial deposit have been given, because 
it is now believed to be the result of glacial or ice action. It is composed 
of sand, sometimes stratified and sometimes contorted. Amongst this are 
boulders of all sizes, some polished or scratched by rubbing on the rocks. 
The drift is, in fact, an accumulated mass of gravelly sand, containing frag- 
ments of all sorts of rocks, with boulders of all sizes, mixed without the 
slightest regularity. 
The short discussion which followed Mr. Stoddart's paper concluded the 
proceedings. 
