308 HARMER : FIELD EXCURSION TO CROMER, ETC. 
met with in the former. They are always in a fragmentary 
condition, and were probably derived from carcases floated 
down, possibly from some distance, in times of flood. This- 
part of the fauna has, generally, a southern character. 
An exposure of the freshwater beds was observed at West 
Runton, in the form of peaty sand with freshwater shells. Cyrena 
flumenalis, some other terrestrial and fluviatile moUusca not 
now living in England, occurs at this place, and it was here 
that Mr. Reid obtained a collection of small mammals, birds, 
reptiles, and fishes, and a flora similar to that of the Norfolk 
Broads at the present day. While, therefore, the fauna and 
flora of the freshwater part of the Forest-Bed series lived near 
the spot where they are found, the elephant remains of the 
estuarine portion may belong to some region to the south of 
Great Britain. 
Further east, towards Cromer, the estuarine gravels with 
Astarte and Tellina balthica were observed, resting on the Chalk. 
PI. XLIII. shows one of the great masses, now of chalk, and 
again of marl, which are characteristic of the Cromer drifts. 
The one here represented was 200 yards long and 60 feet high 
forty years ago, but it is being gradually destroyed by the en- 
croachment of the sea upon the coast. Such marl masses are of 
more frequent occurrence towards the western portion of the 
cliff section ; indeed, in part of North-west Norfolk, as near 
Wells, the country is covered by a thick sheet of material un- 
distinguishable from that of the great boulder shown in the 
photograph. 
The most probable hypothesis of the origin of the Glacial 
deposits of the Cromer coast seems to be that they were due 
to the action of ice moving southward along the coasts of York- 
shire and Lincolnshire, which picked up in its course, here and 
there, a stray erratic from the western edge of the Scandinavian 
Glacier, or from the bed of the North Sea. 
During the evening of the same day the General Meeting 
of the Society was held at Cromer, Mr. Godfrey Bingley in the 
chair, the subject previously announced for consideration being 
" The Glacial Deposits of East Anglia, and their relation to 
