A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK In the lower reaches of the Waveney, from Beccles to Breydon Water, there are extensive levels which in places lie beneath highwater sea level, and are protected by raised banks along the margin of the river. These marshes are liable to floods, as the sluggish rivers cannot readily convey the water they receive during the heavy rains ; but in general the water in the dykes that intersect the marshes is pumped into the river. Near Burgh St. Peter the alluvial deposits have yielded Cardium edule and Scrobicularia plana in addition to land and freshwater shells.' Lothingland, on which the old town of Lowestoft and Gorleston stand, is now practically an island through the artificial cut which con- nects Oulton Broad and Lake Lothing, formerly a continuation of the Broad, with the sea. At one time a stream flowed westwards as a tributary of the Waveney, but the sea afterwards formed a channel at Lowestoft gap, which was open during the Roman occupation, but closed by an embankment about the middle of the seventeenth century. It is spoken of by R. C. Taylor as the ' ancient and long abandoned haven of Kirkley.' ^ The marshes near Southwold and Dunwich have been inundated in old times by the sea, and the land on which Southwold is built is practi- cally an island. Further south there are salt marshes near Orford, and there are alluvial islets in the channel of the Ore, based on the London Clay and connected by shingle. The alluvial tracts, and especially those along the course of the Waveney, furnish the chief meadow and grazing lands. Peaty beds occur in places on the borders of the Ouse and Lark in their lower courses, also at Lopham, at Easton Broad, over Westwood Marshes near Southwold, and in the estuary of the Deben near Bawdsey. Where such valleys are open to the sea the peaty beds become exposed on the foreshore at low tide and give rise to submerged forests. Thus in the estuary of the Orwell, extending from Ipswich to Pin Mill, a submerged forest was described by J. E. Taylor in 1874.^ It contained leaves of plants, hazel nuts, etc., in a peaty bed, which was 9 feet thick in places. The mammoth was obtained, but this doubtless was derived from older deposits. The depths of the Alluvium indicate that the land stood higher at one time, an elevation which would have enlarged the drainage area and promoted denudation. The ordinary remains obtained from these deposits are the red deer, wolf, ox, etc., as was the case in Barton Mere.* The coast from near Gorleston southwards is noted for the ravages made by the sea, especially in ancient times at Dunwich, which was an important city in the time of Henry II.
- J. H. Blake, ' Geology of Yarmouth and Lowestoft,' p. 66.
' R. C. Taylor, ' On the Geology of East Norfolk ' (i 827), p. 47 ; and Supplementary Notes, p. 52 ; J. H. Blake, op. cit. pp. 73-5.
- Geol. Mag. V. 44 1; Refi. Brit. Assoc, for 1875, sections, p. 82.
- Rev. H. Jones, ^art. Joum. Suffolk Inst. (1869), p. 31.
28
