CROMER FOREST-BED. 
159 
more broken and worn. In the clays most of the bones occur in 
masses of rolled clay-pebbles, and very few in the laminated 
portion, though one or two found in the latter are unusually 
perfect. 
Between East Kunton and Cromer the estuarine Forest-bed 
can only here and there be seen at the base of the cliff or on the 
foreshore; it appears gradually to become more carbonaceous, 
and contains few marine shells, except mussels. About three- 
quarters of a mile north-west of Cromer there is sometimes 
exposed at low water two or three feet of black mud representing 
the Lower Freshwater Bed. This mad can be traced for about 
a hundred yards, cutting through the Weybourn Crag, and in 
one place for a few feet touching the Chalk, so that it extends 
to extreme low water mark. Besting on and overlapping it 
greenish laminated sandy clay full of wood contains occasional 
marine shells and fir-cones. This exposure of the Lower Fresh¬ 
water Bed is especially important, as being one of the few places 
where the horizon has been examined in sitiv; though from 
derivative boulders in the overlying estuarine beds, and from 
beach specimens at Happisburgh, its flora is fairly well known. 
The deposit is a tenacious and carbonaceous river-mud with fish¬ 
bones, and abundance of seeds of water and marsh plants and 
masses of the bracts of cotton grass. 
Opposite Cromer the Forest-bed is hidden under the sea-wall 
and by the beach retained by the groynes, but a few yards west 
of the wall, laminated clay with drift-wood and fir-cones is 
occasionally to be seen at the base of the cliff and on the fore¬ 
shore. Many tree-stumps are said to have been found when the 
sea-wall was being built, but now no clear sections are met with 
till the last groyne is passed. On the lower side of the groyne, 
when the beach has been scoured away by storms, clayey gravel 
is laid bare. From this locality Mr, Savin has obtained many 
bones. 
Between the Lighthouse Hills and Overstrand village the 
Forest-bed changes very little. In the upper part it consists of 
laminated blue clay with drift wood, but (as far as the writer 
has seenl no bones. Beneath there are generally alternations of 
clay and gravel with large pieces of drift-wood, bones, and 
mussels; and at the base is found a bed of clay-pebbles with 
abundance of bones, resting on the fossiliferous clays of the 
Weybourn Crag. The thickness of the Forest-bed near Over¬ 
strand appears to average about 15 feet; in one place it measured 
24 feet. 
A large proportion of the mammalian remains in old collec¬ 
tions were obtained from the Green Hill Bocks, opposite the light¬ 
house. Several hundred elephants’ teeth must have been found, 
and yet probably the locality was not exceptionally fossiliferous. 
The reason why so many bones have been washed out is that 
the building of the jetty and groynes at Cromer stopped the 
travelling of the beach, so that for many years these rocks were 
