J. H. Blake — Age of the Kessingland Root-bed. 299 
siderable interest, in reference to the great denudation which, as Mr. 
Wood and I (Mr. Harmer) maintain, followed the Lower Glaoial 
formation when the valley-system of East Anglia was, we believe, 
mainly excavated.” 
It is quite unnecessary — as will presently appear — to follow 
Messrs. Wood and Harmer, any further in their theoretical views, 
as to this Rootlet-bed being a deposit formed posteriorly to the Con- 
torted Drift or Lower Boulder-clay, and during the great denudation 
which they maintain took place previously to the deposition of the 
Middle Glacial Sands, marking a long interval of time, and which, 
they state, must have been accompanied by a climate as temperate 
as that of the preglacial Forest-bed of the North Norfolk coast, if 
their Suggestion of the interglacial age of the Kessingland-bed should 
prove to have good foundation, etc., etc. ; inasmuch, as the Rootlet- 
bed, containing mammalian remains, can be proved by Superposition, 
irrespective of all other eonsiderations, to wnderli e. the Contorted 
Drift or Lower Boulder-clay and other Lower Glacial beds ; there- 
fore, is clearly not of the age suggested by the authors of these 
papers. 
Messrs. Wood and Harmer mention this Rootlet-bed as “ the well- 
known Kessingland deposit,” also as “the Mammalian-bed of Kessing- 
land,” etc., and treat it, in a great measure, as a deposit peculiar to the 
Kessingland Cliff-section ; but I would draw attention to the fact, 
that the continuation of this very same deposit is to be seen at the 
base of the adjoining cliffs of Hopton and Corton, containing rootlets 
of the same kind and in precisely the same crumpled condition as 
tliose to be seen at Kessingland and Pakefield ; and the deposit 
of clay itself — in which the rootlets occur in a vertical position as 
they grew — is in every respect precisely similar to that at Kessing- 
land, and likewise contains Mammalian remains. I have also observed 
this same deposit, with rootlets, in the Cliff-section at Hasborough , 1 
and also in the Cliff-section at Ruuton, to the west of Cromer ; and 
have not the slightest doubt as to the identity of this remarkable 
bed — specially characterized by small vertical crumpled rootlets in 
situ, all apparently of the same species — which is exposed at intervals 
at the base of the Norfolk and Suffolk Cliffs, from Kessingland to 
Runton, a distance of nearly fifty miles ; thus, marking au horizon 
of considerable importance with respect to the correlation of the 
beds in Norfolk and Suffolk : and this horizon, I may briefly ex- 
plain — as all details will be given in future Survey memoirs and 
cliff-sections — occurs at the upper part, or thereabouts, of what is 
generally known as the Cromer preglacial Forest-bed series, and 
heneath the Lower Glacial series of Messrs. Wood and Harmer. 
Although, according to Mr. Harmer, there is nothing in the 
Kessingland Cliff - section to show whether this deposit, w;ith 
rootlets, preceded the Lower Glacial beds, that is not the case in 
the other cliff-sections mentioned by me, where a continuation of 
this identical deposit with rootlets occurs ; at Hopton and Corton 
it is overlaid by the Contorted Drift or Lower Boulder-clay, with a 
1 Spelt Happisburgh on Ordnance Map ; but usually called Hasborough. 
