NOTES AND QUEHIES. 
139 
fliut, but not a vestige of any primitive rock. This loam contains an abundance 
of very small fragments of tertiary shells, resembling those from tlic cra^, as 
also docs the sand above it. The boulders of gneiss met with on tlie beach by 
Messrs. Trimmer and Giinn, we may venture to believe, had previously fallen 
from the bouklcr-clay above; and those seen by Mr. Gunn embedded in tiie 
clilf, I am disposed to think, were driven in aud covered up by violent tides 
prevailing on that shore, having first fallen from above, aud been carried out to 
sea by retiring waves. Neitlier after frequent iterations of long-couthiucd ex- 
aminations of the drift in West Norfolk; the written reports of an intelligent 
well-siidcer upon the beds passed tlirougli iu forty wells, chiefly in West Nor- 
folk, with a few extending into the centre of the county ; nor from tlie ex- 
aminations of Dr. Mitchell* have I been able to obtaui any information that 
would lead mc to bebeve iu the existeuce of two bouldcr-elays. 
Botli in tlie gravel-beds aud boulder-clay throughout the counties of Norfolk 
and Suffolk large aud siiuill rolled masses of prunitive rocks arc almost every- 
where met with, so that the occui-reuce of them on the Goriest on beach is to 
be expected, aud therefore they prove nothing towards the definition of two 
boulder-clays there. 
Kccently I have taken opportunities of examining into the superficial strata, 
from the dirift above the boulder-clay successively down to the chalk. In the 
first instance at Lowestoft, where the upper drift, boulder-clay, with the under- 
lying sand and loam have been opened ; next at Gorton Cliff, where the boulder- 
clay, with tile subjacent sand, and the so-called lower boulder-clay are visible 
in the cliff; then at Gorleston, where but a small seam of boulder-clay beneath 
the vegetalile soil covers the under-lying sands, and where the loam beneath is 
rarely visible; lastly, where a well has been bored down into the chalk. 
Surely, m tiiis last instance, bad a lower boulder-clay existed, some indications 
of it would have been brougiit to light. 
The diagrams of sections (p. liO) will illustrate the above descriptions, and 
assist iu the comprehension of my view of the divisions of the Drift iu Norfolk 
aud Suffolk. 
To the north of Yannouth, at Caister Castle, at Ormsby, and the neighbour- 
ing villages which I have examined, the boulder-clay is again seen cajiping the 
inferior (Irift-sauds, it having been removed from them by denudation at the 
embouchure of the three rivers, Waveney, Yare, and Bure, at Breydon Broad. 
At Ormsby, in a brick-yard, the ferruginous loam of the lower drift is met with 
nearer the surface, not enclosing a single boulder. To the west of the sea- 
shore, about five miles inland from Lowestoft and Gorton, and at Somerleyton 
brickfield, also at Baruby and Eellough, near Beccles, the boulder-clay is seen 
covered by the upper-drift, aud " warp of the drift," of Trimmer. At Somer- 
leyton, in the brickfield, a well has been sunL in the loam and sand beneath the 
boulder-clay to the depth of forty feet ; and these beds have been opened hori- 
zontally to nearly the same depth to procui-e brick-earth, without meeting with 
a boulder of any kind, nor even a flint-stone of a size adapted for paving; no- 
tliing but small auguha- shingle and pebbles. 
In West Norfolk the boulder-elay lies for the most part immediately upon 
the chalk ; but wlieu a bed of sand or gravel intervenes, no fragments of ter- 
tiary marine shells are to be found in it, as in similarly placed sands in East 
Norfolk, the former bed lying beyond the western and northern margin of the 
crag formation. The position of the boulder-clay near to the surface is shown 
with surprising accuracy upon Smith's Geological Maps of Norfolk and Suffolk 
by the dark drab-colour used for designating tlie heavy lands in those counties. 
If I may presume to suggest an alteration of luy late esteemed friend's divisions 
' " Oil the Drift, &c. ;" "or J. Mitchell, L.L.D. Geological Proceedings, vol. iii.. p. 2. 
