478 
Geohrpj of Norfolk. 
FT. IV. 
1. Surface soil, brown cla J', with sand . . .40 
2. Blue clay, fresh-water shells . . . .30 
3. Peat, containing bones of ruminants . . 2 2^ 
4. Blue clay, like No. 2 8 0 
5. Peat, with alder and hazel bushes, the lower por- 
tions clay, containing roots of marsh plants . 3 0 
6. Dark blue clay, not cut through, a marine silt. 
20 2[- 
The marine shells in No. G. aie a different group from that of 
the Nar clay, and are of species identical with those now inha- 
biting the estuary. 
In a well in the town of Lynn a similar succession of deposits 
was found to rest on till (blue clay with nodules of chalk) twenty 
to thirty feet deep. 
The reclaiming of this tract was commenced by the Romans. 
After their departure the embankments were neglected and the 
fens were again submerged and covered by the beds No. 2. In 
this state they remained till the time of Charles I., when these 
operations of draining and embanking were resumed, which have 
been prosecuted with such well-known energy and success during 
the last half century, and which form a striking contrast to the 
neglect which the alluvial district of East Norfolk has expe- 
rienced. The series of deposits exhibited in the preceding section 
appears to indicate a condition of surface,, such as may be sup- 
posed to have prevailed at Mundesley and Runton during the 
formation of the fresh-water deposits and the growth of the forest, 
before that submergence which has there left as its monument 
the strata of lower and upper drift more than three hundred feet 
thick. 
The large cjuantity of fine sediment held in suspension by the 
waters of the Wash, and its effects in depositing soil in favourable 
situations, are strikingly exemplified by a fact observed by Smith, 
that the surface is the lowest on the part first reclaimed, that is, 
within the area embanked by the Romans, while its height in- 
creases on the outside of each subserjuent embankment, the 
highest ground of all being a space beyond the sea wall^ slill 
overflowed by the tide. 
Fossil Manukks oi' Norfolk. 
From the distribution of the soils in Norfolk under the com- 
bined influence of the solid strata and the drift, I proceed to the 
geological relations of its fossil manures, and to the question 
whether the clay and marl, which have been so largely and bene- 
ficially employed in that county, are peculiar to it, or may 
reasonably be expected in the substrata of other districts. In 
