A HISTORY OF NORFOLK were here and there laid down before the final melting away of the ice, but for the most part they appear to have been due to the torrents thus caused. Hence they may truly be regarded as Flood Gravels and their formation may have initiated some of the main lines of drainage which they partially occupy. They contain no contemporaneous fossils, if we except the broken molar of an elephant mentioned by Mr. Reid.' Occasionally these gravels occur in curious isolated sinuous ridges or they appear like ' barrows ' ; such features having resemblances to eskers have been noticed near Blakeney and also near Ringstead St. Peter. Loam, perhaps newer than the Chalky Boulder Clay, occurs locally ; the more noteworthy deposits being at Holkham and Burnham Overy, and along the margin of the alluvial tracts at Brancaster and Hunstanton. Here there is a brown loam with a few stones, 8 feet thick at the Cliff Gardens, Hunstanton, which has been compared with the Hessle Clay of Holderness. Although some of the loams may simply be decalcified Chalky Boulder Clay, it is probable that all are not of this character. Possibly of the same age as this Brown Boulder Clay is the marine gravel known as the ' Raised Beach ' at Hunstanton. Near the gasworks there is a pit showing about 30 feet of sand and coarse gravel, with streaks of clay and pebbles of hard white Chalk, Red Chalk, and various erratics. It rests on a bed of seemingly rearranged Boulder Clay, and it contains examples of common living species of Ostrea^ Mactra, Cyprina, Tellina, Purpura and Cardium. The several divisions of the Glacial Drifts have now been described, and it will be readily admitted that they form a complex group. No section is known which, in one exposure, exhibits all the divisions in succession ; but by carefully studying the evidence furnished by cliff- sections and pits, and elsewhere by well-borings, such as those at Dereham, North Walsham, etc., we may obtain a good idea of the rela- tions of the beds. We shall also learn that there are many exceptions to orderly sequence, the result partly of irregular accumulation, partly of subsequent disturbance. We should also be prepared to admit that during the Glacial Period, while land-ice exercised the most potent influence, there were periods when floating ice and coast ice may also have taken a share in the production of the phenomena.* VALLEY GRAVEL AND LOAM The deposits of valley gravel and loam in Norfolk do not occut over very extensive areas, excepting near Narborough and along the Fenland borders south of Lynn. They fringe the rivers at a higher level in their valleys than the alluvium, but are not always clearly to be separated from bordering tracts of Glacial gravel.
- Geology of Cromer y p. 94.
- A capital ' Bibliography of Norfolk Glaciology, including the Cromer Clifis, with the
Forest Bed Series,* by W. Jerorrie Harrison, was printed in the G/acia/ists' Magazine for 1897. It includes brief abstracts of the papers. 22
