AN UN PUBLISH KD LETTER FROM I)R. THOMAS BROWNE. 363 
County of Norfolk’ (vol i. p. 121) in 1818, makes direct reference 
to the letter of Browne to Dugdale given above, which he says is 
dated Nov 17, 1659, but he does not tell us by what means he had 
access to the document. Richard Taylor, also, in a communication 
to the ‘Philosophical Magazine’ (p. 135), dated Norwich, 
1 4th August, 1822, mentions the same letter, probably quoting 
from the “ Excursions,” and repeating the discovery of the head 
and bones of a very large “fish” by the falling of the cliff, but 
they do not appreciate the significance of the different horizon in 
which the so-called “ fish-bones ” are said to have been found ; for 
although there can be no doubt that the mammalian remains found 
at the base of the cliffs had their origin in the Forest-bed, the “lower 
jaw containing teeth of prodigious bigness” being most likely that 
of some species of Elephas, any vertebrate remains from the upper 
stratum of the cliff must have had a very different origin. The 
fact too of the skull being associated with other bones, presumably 
of the same animal, would alone render it highly improbable that 
they were derived from the Forest-bed. 
Mr. Clement Reid, in his Survey Memoir of “The Geology of 
the Country around Cromer” (p. 20), refers to Taylor’s mention of 
the bones of the “very large fish;” and appreciating the difficulty 
with regard to their occurrence in such a situation, suggests the 
probability of some mistake. But in the face of Browne’s positive 
assertion, and considering his well-known accuracy of observation, 
it seems impossible that he was altogether mistaken as to their 
position in the cliff, or as to their fish-like character. We must 
therefore, it seems to me, look to some other source of origin ; and 
the only feasible solution of the puzzle is, I think, one now suggested 
by Mr. Reid, which, however, he does not advance with any degree 
of confidence, namely, that the bones may have been those of some 
fish-like Saurian derived from a transported mass of Kimeridge, or 
Lias shale embedded in the boulder clay with which the cliffs in 
that locality are capped, and which seen by Browne may have been 
mistaken for the bones of some “great fish” or Cetacean, which 
terms were synonymous in those days ; or it is even within the 
realm of possibility, seeing the rapid waste of the coast which has 
taken place in that locality, that Browne may have seen some 
deposit which has since been destroyed by the wearing away of 
the cliff. 
