CROMER FOREST-BED. 
149 
primai’y point as the relative order of it and the associated Crag 
beds is considered by some to be a debateable question. This 
difficulty is in great measure owing to the fact that during the 
summer time, when geologists generally examine the coast, the 
strata are almost entirely hidden by the beach, whereas it is only 
during the winter and equinoctial gales that clear exposures can 
usually be found. 
Where most complete, the so-called “ Forest-bed ” consists of 
three divisions,—an Upper and a Lower Freshwater Bed, and an 
intermediate Estuarine deposit. The Lower Freshwater Bed 
is seldom preserved, though its flora is well-known from the 
quantity of Pholas-hoved cakes of peat and clay-ironstone found 
in the Estuarine Beds, and derived from the breaking up of the 
underlying deposit. The relation of the Lower Freshwater Bed 
to the Estuarine Forest-bed seems to be somewhat similar to 
that of the recent ‘'Submerged Forests'' in estuaries to the 
deposits now forming in the same localities, in part from their 
destruction. 
, The middle division, which is more particularly the “ Forest- 
bed ” of Norfolk geologists, least deserves the name ; for wherever 
it can be studied it is distictly estuarine, though from con¬ 
taining large quantities of drift wood, and especially stumps of 
frees, many have accepted it without hesitation as a land-surface. 
It is from this division that most of the large mammalian remains 
have been obtained. 
The upper surface of these Estuarine Beds is in many places 
weathered into a soil and penetrated by small roots thence the 
name Rootlet Bed ”*), and here and there it is covered by, or 
eroded hollows in it are filled with, lacustrine deposits. These 
form the Upper Freshwater Bed, in which most of the small 
bones and freshwater shells are found. 
It will be seen that though a land-surface does occur in the 
Pre-glacial deposits, it does not correspond with the horizon to 
which the name “ Forest-bed " has been more especially applied. 
It is not improbable that there may also be another land-surface 
beneath the Lower Freshwater Bed, for in one place the Wey- 
bourn Crag below rhe Forest-bed has a rather weathered appear¬ 
ance ; but of this one cannot be certain. As the question 
whether the tree-stumps are or are not rooted in the Forest-bed 
has been much discussed, it will be advisable to give a brief 
outline of the reasons which have led me to the conclusion that 
thejiT- are not in their positions of growth. 
Though many of the published accounts of the Forest-bed 
appear at first sight circumstantial, it is singulai’ that none of 
the earlier observers appear to have compared the so-called soil 
with recent soils. If this had been done it is certain that the 
error which has arisen would in most cases have been avoided ; 
* Attention was drawn to this bed in 1870 by Prof. Prestwick {Quart. Jour. Gcol. 
Soc., vol. xxviii., p. 463) ; and subsequently by Mr. Gunn {Ibid., vol. xxxii., p. 124), 
and Mr. Blake {Geol. Mag., dec. IT., vol. iv., p. 298). 
