CROMER FOREST-BED. 
157 
These pebbly gravels, which are common all along the coast, are 
often cemented into a mass of ferruginous conglomerate, which, 
after the talus has been cleared away by storms, forms a con¬ 
spicuous tabular mass at the base of the cliff, or on the foreshore. 
This “ pan ” or “ elephant-bed,” as it is often called, lies on no fixed 
horizon, but ranges throughout the Forest-bed, sometimes at the 
base, but more commonly high up. It appears always to occur 
at the base of a mass of gravel or sand which rests on impervious 
clays. 
Tracing the strata from West Runton Gap, the first characteristic 
section of the estuarine beds that has been observed is a short 
distance west of the large Chalk boulders in ths cliff. Here 
laminated clay full of lignite occupies a hollow eroded in the 
Weybourn Crag and cutting nearly to the Chalk, but a few yards 
further it rises and is lost in the beach. Under the western end 
of the first Chalk boulder, the Freshwater bed again appears in 
the cliff for about ten yards, resting on weathered loamy gravel 
with estuarine shells. 
Near Wood Hill there is shown on the foreshore a bed of clay- 
pebbles resting apparently on an eroded surface of Weybourn 
Crag. This bed passes up into alternating laminated clays, sand, 
and gravel. All the beds contain much drift wood and occasional 
derivative cakes of peat. Bones, and marine, land, and fresh¬ 
water shells, occur abundantly near the base. Owing to the 
peculiar nature of this deposit, which has been formed in part 
from the breaking up of the Weybourn Crag and of the Lower 
Freshwater Bed, it is very difficult to say to what extent the 
marine shells may be derivative, but most of the land and fresh¬ 
water species certainly belong to the bed; and so do many of the 
estuarine forms, for there are seams full of mussels in the position 
of life. 
These beds of clay-pebbles maintain the same character for 
some distance south-east of East Runton Gangway ; they are 
extremely fossiliferous, and show 
better than any other portion of 
the deposit the curiously mixed 
or estuarine character of the 
typical Forest-bed fauna. Mr. 
A. C. Savin, of Cromer, has here 
obtained a number of mammalian 
remains. Among those found in 
the course of the Survey were— 
the scapula of elephant, jaw of 
Trogontherium (Fig. -37), and 
antlers of several species of deer, 
now in the Museum of Pi-actical 
Geology, The Trogontherium is a large extinct rodent allied 
to the Beaver; it is common in Upper Pliocene freshwater 
deposits. The quantity of bones seen at Runton indicates that 
at present this is one of the best localities for collecting from 
the estuarine division. It is also the only place where land-shells 
are found in any abundance; Helix is particularly common, much 
Fig. 37. 
Trogontherium Guvieri, Owen 
{lower grinders, from a speci¬ 
men found at Mundesley). 
Natural size. 
