CKOMEK FOREST-BED. 
161 
extremity. It was cut off, and is now in the Museum of Practical 
Geology as an example of the ordinary worn state of the roots 
in the Forest-bed trees. 
At Beck Hithe the Boulder Clay cuts deeply into the Forest- 
bed, and the bones, though abundant, are much crushed and 
decayed. A few yards to the east the junction again rises, 
and the Upper Freshwater Bed appears immediately beneath 
the Boulder Clay. The exposures between Overstrand and 
Sidestrand being fully described in the Cromer Memoir, one 
characteristic section will be sufficient to indicate the nature of 
the deposits, for though the thickness varies considerably the 
general character of the strata remains unchanged for some 
distance. About 600 yards east of Beck Hithe, the following 
section was seen; its exact position may be found by the 
enormous Chalk boulder in the cliff above, and by the old groyne 
on the shore opposite :— 
Boulder Clay. 
Upper Fresh¬ 
water Bed. 
Forest-bed 
(estuarine). 
(?) 
Weybourn 
Crag. 
Feet. 
r Sand irregularly mixed with carbonaceous blue 
■I clay : Valvata piscinalis, Bythinia tentacu- 
L lata, Pisidium amnicAim, Unio or Anodon - 2 
f False-bedded sand with clay-pebbles and 
I iTSigments of Mytilus. (A perfect specimen 
<( of Scalaria groenlandica) - - - 
I False-bedded sandy gravel, in places ce- 
(_ mented into pan - - - - 4 
Hidden under .the beach - - - 4 
j- Sandy clay with decayed marine shells. 
Beneath the Freshwater Bed there are perhaps some small roots 
penetrating the estuarine sands, but they are obscure and much 
decayed. A sample of the carbonaceous clay, recently obtained a 
few yards from this spot, yielded a number of seeds, belonging 
as usual to marsh and aquatic plants, but among them were also 
some fruit of hawthorn, a species not previously found in the 
Cromer Forest-bed. 
Under the high cliffs at Sidestrand the Upper Freshwater 
Bed increases in importance, and becomes a bedded lacustrine 
clay full of shells, seeds, and fish-bones. Mammalian remains 
are scarce, and land-shells are seldom found in it; so that both 
the nature of the deposit and the included fossils point to 
a shallow lake, bordered probably by marshy ground, and a 
thick belt of sedges, which strained out any land shells or drift 
wood. Thus the whole of the animals and plants here found 
are aquatic or marsh species, and the fauna and fiora, though the 
plants are here in a better state of preservation, are not so interest¬ 
ing as at West Bunton, where land-mammals and mollusca are 
abundant, and forest trees occur. The commonest plants at 
Sidestrand are the floating pondweeds, yellow water-lily and 
water-crowfoot. The water-chestnut occurs, but is extremely 
rare. Most of the other plants belong to wet meadows ; among 
E 60798. L 
