was open to the sea, most probably northwards, for the admission of the whales; while it appears to have been closed at the Straits of Dover and Calais, to afford a passage for the mammals into this country. This deposit of the soil may be regarded as the first phase of the Forest Bed; and here, we may observe, a long interval may have intervened between this and the second phase, which dates from the raising of the soil to the surface of the waters and the growth of the forest upon it. In this the remains of the E. antiquus are most abundant; other varieties of the Elephant are found here, together with Rhinoceros etruscus and Trogontherium Cuvieri. This may be regarded as the true Forest Bed; the stools of the trees belonging to it are visible along the coast at various places from Kessingland to Cromer.' (Gunn.)

A black freshwater peaty clay, with Unio, &c., and a 'rootlet-bed' occur above the Forest Bed at Runton, Kessingland, &c.

Blue clay and gravel indurated into 'pan' may be traced at intervals along the coast near Overstrand Gap, Mundesley, Trimmingham, and Cromer. At Bacton the clay is of a greenish colour.

Those who wish to examine the Forest Bed of Cromer may be disappointed in not being able to determine its exact relations to the Glacial beds in the cliff-sections, for seldom save at low tide can the Forest bed be seen at all, and it is only at a few places that it has been seen in situ beneath the Glacial beds, owing to the recent deposits of sand and shingle that are banked up against the cliffs.

Through the Forest Bed are scattered cones of the Scotch and spruce firs with the seeds of recent plants, and the bones of at least twenty species of terrestrial mammalia. These mammalian remains occur chiefly in the pan, and include

Elephas meridionalis, E. antiquus, Hippopotamus major, Rhinoceros etruscus, Bison priscus, Cervus (several species), Trogontherium Cuvieri (a gigantic Beaver), &c.

We are greatly indebted to Mr. John Gunn for the large collection of these remains placed in the Norwich Museum, and to the late Rev. S. W. King for a collection now in the Museum at Jermyn Street.1

Messrs. Wood and Harmer consider that with the exception of certain cetacean vertebræ found in the Chillesford Clay at Chillesford, it is open to question whether any of the Mammalian remains obtained from the Fluvio-marine Crag, or from the Chillesford beds, belonged to individuals which lived during the accumulation of these deposits. The Mastodon teeth found in the Red and Fluvio-marine Crags, and in the Chillesford Beds, have, they think, been derived from destroyed freshwater deposits intermediate between the Coralline Crag and the Red Crag. From the fact that no trace of the Mastodon has yet been found among the abundant elephantine remains from the Forest Bed, they consider it doubtful whether that animal lived during the age of the Chillesford Crag; since the Forest Bed, if it be not actually coeval with this deposit containing Mastodon remains, is evidently separated from the latest of them by an interval of time too slight (and accompanied apparently by no change of climate) satisfactorily to account for the disappearance of this great proboscidean genus.

Thus, while there is no evidence to show that the Forest Bed Series, with its estuarine soil, its land surface, and subse

1 A great number of Mammalian remains have been dredged off the coast; according to Mr. S. Woodward, the Oyster Ridge off Happisburgh and the Knole Sand off Yarmouth have contributed most largely. He mentioned that at one time the Rev. James Layton of Catfield had as many as 600 grinders of the Elephant! Most of these remains, however, belong to a Post-Glacial deposit, and not to the Forest Bed.

quent freshwater deposits, may not have been accumulated (at any rate in part) contemporaneously with the deposition of the Fluvio-marine Crag, its exact relation to the Chillesford Beds is a matter of dispute, but there is no question whatever that subsequent depression allowed the Bure Valley Beds to extend over a larger area than that occupied by the Fluvio-marine Crag and Chillesford Beds, and to rest in places directly upon the Forest Bed Series.

SECTION IV.

QUATERNARY OR POST-TERTIARY.

CHAPTER X.

POST-PLIOCENE OR PLEISTOCENE.

In considering the deposits of Post-Pliocene date that occur in different parts of England and Wales, one is immediately struck with their wide range and extensive distribution as compared with the other and older strata. These deposits, known under the familiar name of Drift, have but lately received their due acknowledgment and rank as geological formations, being in many publications treated as superficial deposits, and as apparently belonging to quite another order of creation to the more 'solid' rocks that underlie them. As these Drift deposits rival and even exceed in thickness some formations in our geological tables, and as, taken collectively, they have a more direct influence upon Agriculture than any other formation, their importance may be readily conceded. But I am well aware that in most cases it would be exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to show these Drifts with any approach to accuracy on a map smaller than that of the oneinch Ordnance Survey, and upon that they are now represented by the Geological Survey of England and Wales. Moreover, the Drifts themselves play a comparatively insignificant part in the formation of our scenery, for the great features that our country now possesses were nearly all marked out before the Drifts were deposited.

The word Diluvium' was originally applied to deposits supposed to have been formed or deposited during violent water action, such as would take place in periods of excessive rain-fall, causing torrents of water in the rivers, floods or deluges, or by the sea or rivers bursting through some bank or sea-wall. It is a term now little used, owing to the deposits termed Diluvial being frequently misunderstood to indicate a Universal Deluge. The term 'Drift' is generally synonymous, and would naturally refer to beds formed from rocks at a distance from the localities where they have been deposited. For instance' to quote Conybeare (1822)—' when we find rounded pebbles derived from rocks which exist in situ only in the mountains of the north and west, scattered over the plains of the midland counties, we may be sure that the currents drifted from the former point to the latter; and it often affords a curious and interesting problem to the geologist to trace these travelled fragments to their native masses, often hundreds of miles distant. The accumulations of this gravel above referred to, in the midland counties, especially along the plains at the foot of the escarpment of the chain of the Inferior Oolite on the borders of Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire, and Warwickshire, are of surprising extent, and the materials brought together are from so many quarters, that it would not be difficult to form a nearly complete suite of the geological formations of England from their fragments here deposited. Portions of the same gravel have been swept onwards through transverse valleys affording openings across the chains of Oolite and Chalk hills, as far as the plains surrounding the metropolis; but the principal mass of the diluvial gravel in this latter quarter is derived from the partial destruction of the neighbouring Chalk hills, consisting of flints washed out from thence, and subsequently rounded by attrition.'

In considering the relations of the different Drift deposits