In 1828 he addressed a letter to Dr. Fitton, President of the 
Geological Society of London, respecting some remarkable fossil 
remains found on the Norfolk coast. This was read at a meeting of 
the Society, held on the 2nd January in the following year. Therein 
he noticed the occurrence of crag at Cromer, and westward of that 
town, at Coltishall, and around Norwich. To the eastward of 
these situations, he remarked that instead of marine shells, a layer 
of ligneous and mammalian remains was found reposing on the 
chalk. In this immense numbers of the fossil remains of the 
elephant, horse, deer, &c., mingled with the trunks, branches, and 
leaves of trees, had been found, even to the distance of twenty 
miles out at sea ; and on the knoll-sand, etc.* These observations 
are of interest in connection with recent discussions on the Forest 
Led. In the foregoing note no definite opinion was expressed as to 
the occurrence of stools of trees in the position in which they grew. 
But this same year (1829) he communicated a short sketch of the 
geology of the county to the ‘ Norfolk Tour,’ and therein states 
that, in what was subsequently termed the Forest Bed, there “are 
found a surprising number of vegetable and animal remains, as 
trunks, branches, leaves, and stumps of trees (in situ),” etc. There 
is nothing, however, in this or other notes I can find, to show 
whether or not he had himself determined that the stumps were 
in their natural position.! Two years previously (1827), he notes 
that in his collection of remains from the coast, were Elephant, 
Bhinoceros, Hippopotamus, Horse, Bos, Irish Elk, and three 
species of deer.! Many of these were obtained from the oyster- 
bank off Hasboro’, which he regarded as “an extension of the blue 
clay of the cliff.” He also observed at this time, that “ the horns 
of the deer species are broken into fragments of from six to eight 
* Proc. Geol. Soc., Vol. i., p. 93. 
+ All observers admit that the Rootlet Bed furnishes evidence of a land 
surface with rootlets in situ, and it seems most probable from the evidence 
gathered by Mr. C. Reid, of the Geological Survey, that most of the stools 
of trees seen at Hasboro’ belong to this horizon, beneath which the majority 
of the mammalian bones occur. 
+ Having submitted his list at this date to the Rev. James Layton, that 
gentleman replied that he could add nothing, save that he thought he had 
four species of deer. See Layton, Edin. Journ. Science, Vol. vi., p. 199. 
