CROMER FOREST-BED. 
153 
A summary of the more important parts of this mass of facts 
is given in the following pages. Selected sections are also in¬ 
serted, to show the ordinary nature of the deposits, and where 
local peculiarities tend to modify the character of the fauna and 
flora these are indicated. 
In describing the sections of the Forest-bed we will commence 
at the northern extremity of the area, for towards the south 
the relations of the deposits are more obscure, and there is 
considerable doubt as to the limits of this division. 
In the neighbourhood of Weybourn the Lower Freshwater 
Bed appears to have been overlapped ; at any rate no trace of 
it can there be found. The quartzite-gravels, belonging probably 
to the middle Estuarine division of the Forest-bed, are almost 
unfossiliferous, nothing having been found in them at this 
locality except one or two fragments of bone and pieces of wood; 
their mode of occurrence is shown in Fig. 84 (p. 141). Above them, 
for rather more than a quarter of a mile east of the Coastguard 
Station, there are freshwater peaty loams belonging to the 
Upper Freshwater Bed, lying in slightly eroded hollows cut off 
above by Boulder Clay, so that we cannot say whether they are 
portions of a once continuous lacustrine deposit, or were formed 
in separate ponds. Beneath these, the beds are penetrated by 
small roots too much decayed for microscopic examination. At 
one spot only could any fossils be obtained. Just five hundred 
yards east of the flagstafif a peaty seam yielded in abundance 
Cypris hrowniana and opercula of Bythinia; but all purely 
calcareous fossils have disappeared, having been dissolved by the 
peaty water. Shells must originally have been abundant, for a 
large quantity of the horny opercula were obtained by washing 
a little of the loam. A few yards further east the quartzite 
gravel rises and thins out against the Boulder Clay. 
It is worthy of note that at Weybourn, under the Upper 
Freshwater Bed, the surface of the Chalk is irregular and much 
piped. In several places the Pliocene strata have subsided 
into hollows, but the .Boulder Clay continues across undisturbed, 
proving the piping to be pre-glacial. East of the point where 
the Freshwater Beds disappear the surface of the Chalk becomes 
much more regular. 
No further exposures that can be definitely referred to the 
Forest-bed occur till within a quarter of a mile of Lower Slier- 
ringham. Here we have the following section in the lower part 
of the cliff : — 
Feet. 
Boulder Olay 
Leda-myaVvS \ Yellowish sand and a little gravel - - 15 
Bed ? / G-ravel ------ 3 
Upper Freshwater Bed (missing). 
Forest-bed T Stiff dark-blue clay, with drift wood and 
(estuarine > small cakes of peat, bones and teeth of 
division). J elephant, and antlers of deer. 
Lower Freshwater Bed (missing). 
Weybourn Crag “ Pan” crowded with shells - - - 1| 
Chalk with flints. 
