tinguished for the long northern winter under whicli she laboured, 
a winter so intense and prolonged, that arctic circumstances, phy- 
sically and zoologically, prevailed in the place of that more genial 
climature under which we now live. It was at this period that 
England underwent the last great physical change. We have 
abundant proof that Norfolk must have been submerged to at 
least six hundred feet below its jiresent level. Previous to 
that — with the exception of the muddy deposits brought down by 
a large river on the continent and strewn over a portion of the 
chalk, so as to form the black soU of the “Forest Bed” — Norfolk 
was a continuous and uneven bare sheet of chalk, which had long 
been exposed to atmospherical wear and tear. In the pre-glacial 
epoch, this chalk sheet was roamed over by herds of deer, ele- 
phants, mastodon, &c., and a great estuary cut through it from a 
southerly direction, on the floor of which was formed our well 
known “ Norwich Crag.” One cannot but reflect on the difference 
between the land surface of the county in Pliocene times, and that 
of the present epoch. 
It was during the great depression to which I have referred, that 
the thick beds of sand, gravel, clay, brick-earth, &c., were thrown 
down and accumulated, in some jrarts to nearly three hundred feet 
in thickness. Thus was the old land surface, with its rubble of 
flints, left by the decomposed chalk, associated with the teeth, 
tusks, bones, &c., of extinct animals, covered up beneath an over- 
lying sheet of drift. This sheet must have been more or less con- 
tinuous, with just such variations in its thickness as would be the 
result of currents. 
Then we have the period of elevation, towards the close of the 
glacial epoch. It was no sudden phenomenon, but a process per- 
haps as gentle as that which is even now elevating the northern 
shores of the Baltic. At length the marine muds and sands, in 
their soft condition, were brought under the influences of current 
and tidal action. As the upheaval went on, these could not fail to 
leave their marks on the rising area, in the shape of valleys, re- 
deposited material, etc. We have a good illustration of this in such 
of the latest glacial beds as the sheet of largo, rounded boulders 
on Household, which represent to us a thick stratum whose liner 
particles have been carried away, leaving this ancient shingle heap 
to accumulate in conserpience. The upheav.al Avent on until 
