MR. II. B. WOODWARD ON THE SOILS AND SUBSOILS OF NORFOLK. 41 1 
near Methwold, East and West Hailing, and Wretham. They 
occur also at Gressenhall, Kudliam, and Syderstone, and in greater 
force at Household, Felthorpe, Haveringland, Horsford, Cawston, 
Aylsham, Holt, Sheringham, Aylmerton, and Felbrigg. Here the 
soil is sometimes peaty, while the gravel is locally cemented into 
an iron-pan. 
“Good Sand” was noted by Arthur Young in North and 
North-west Norfolk, where sands and gravels rest on marl or 
chalk, as near StifFkey, Wells, the Burnhams, and Docking. 1 he 
gravels here sometimes contain chalk pebbles. 
The Alluvium forms the Fenland, the strips of flat meadow-land 
which border the rivers, and the marsh-lands which widen out 
in their lower courses in the region of the Broads. These tracts 
have a character of their own on account of their physical features. 
They vary, however, greatly in soil. There are areas of peat and 
areas of clay and silt, and their fertility depends on their being 
well drained. For the most part they are protected by embank- 
ments, but on the north coast near Wells and Stitfkey there are 
salt-marshes liable to be Hooded by the sea at high tide. 
Together these tracts constitute the “Marshland Clay and Beat” 
of Arthur Young. 
The results of this review show that while there is a general 
correspondence between the subsoils and soils, yet there is an 
infinite variety in the soils such as cannot he fully indicated on 
a geological map, and can only be inferred from a knowledge of the 
subsoils. The general groupings of old agriculturists are good, but 
in detail they are of little use. The fact is that the Glacial Drifts 
which so largely influence the soils of Norfolk are liable to change 
laterally as well as vertically in a more abrupt manner than we 
usually find to be the case with strata in regions where there is 
little or no Glacial Drift. It is a county of mixed soils, largely 
owing to the mixed subsoils, but not wholly so. 
Elsewhere we have mixed subsoils in such formations as the 
Beading Beds and the Forest Marble, but yet, as a rule, in the 
southern counties of England we find that the geological formation 
which underlies the mantle of soil, however much or little weathered 
that formation may be, imparts a character to the soil. This is 
notably the case where the red Keuper Marls come to the surface, 
and we can discern in ploughed fields on the steeper scarps, through 
