Geology of Norfolk. 
479 
describing the deposits above the chalk, I have mentioned those 
which have been used for the improvement of the soil — that is, 
nearly all of them. A recapitulation here may not be amiss. 
Taking them in the ascending order, we have — 
1. The peat and clay of the fresh-water deposit below the till 
rarely employed, but always beneficially. 
2. The till. A variety composed of the mixture of the blue 
and yellow till is the clay of East Flegg — the grey clay-marl of 
Marshall. The same, with a larger mixture of detritus derived 
from the hard chalk and the oolites, is extensively employed not 
only upon light soils, but upon the clay-loams, the wheat and 
bean lands of South Norfolk, and the adjoining parts of Suffolk. 
The blue till of Cromer cliffs, of which, on a moderate compu- 
tation, sufficient to fertilize 20,000 acres is annually washed into 
the sea, though little used, has when used been invariably found 
beneficial. The farmers in the neighbourhood of North and South 
Repps, who have the transported chalk close at hand, cart this blue 
clay from Trimingham, a distance of three and four miles, paying 
6fZ. the load for it on the shore, or \s. at the summit of the cliff. 
In a hollow in the chalk near Castleacre is a blue clay con- 
taining lumps of chalk, which appears to belong to this part of 
the series. Mr. Hudson has used it on a loam, by no means 
very light, with great benefit, particularly visible in the subse- 
quent crops of clover. On a field at Trunch, consisting of a still 
better loam, Mr. Amis, now of Frettenham, spread a quantity 
of blue clay, the same as that of the Cromer cliffs, which a 
gentleman in the neighbourhood requested him to remove from 
some excavation which he had made. The result was, in the 
first instance, a splendid crop of oats, followed by a great im- 
provement in the subsequent crops, which is undiminished after 
the lapse of more than ten years. 
3. The most chalky varieties of till constitute the " clay " of 
the neighbourhood of Holkham, which is scarcely distinguishable 
from No. 4 ; the least pure varieties of the transported chalk or 
" marl " of East Norfolk. 
4. I have already stated that some of this transported chalk is 
])ure enough to be burned for lime, that other varieties consist of 
fragments of chalk mixed with a variable proportion of yellow 
sand and clay. "At Wighton," says Young, " I saw an extraor- 
dinary fine white marl not as commonly in globules, but more re- 
sembling the equal consistence or texture of white butter." 
Wighton is near Wells. I have seen similar varieties in some of 
the marl pits of East Norfolk ; in the coast sections they are found 
to proceed from the flanks of masses of transported chalk, the mate- 
rials of which, finely comminuted and re-arranged by aqueous 
action, have been mixed with a portion of clay. The globules, 
spoken of by Young as of ordinary occurrence, are lumps of chalk. 
