_The “Forest Beds.”_—Immediately following this in the order of time comes the famous “Forest Bed” of Cromer. This buried forest has been traced for more than forty miles along the coast from Cromer to near Kessengland, and consists of stumps of trees standing erect, attached to their roots, penetrating the original soil in which they grew. Here and in the overlying fluvio-marine beds we have the first evidence of at least a temperate, if not a warm, inter-glacial period. This is evident from the character of the flora and fauna belonging to these beds. Among the trees we have, for example, the Scotch and spruce fir, the yew, the oak, birch, the alder, and the common sloe. There have also been found the white and yellow water-lilies, the pond-weed, and others. Amongst the mammalia have been met with the _Elephas meridionalis_, also found in the Lower Pliocene beds of the Val d’Arno, near Florence; _Elephas antiquus_, _Hippopotamus major_, _Rhinoceros Etruscus_, the two latter Val d’Arno species, the roebuck, the horse, the stag, the Irish elk, the _Cervus Polignacus_, found also at Mont Perrier, France, _C. verticornis_, and _C. carnutorum_, the latter also found in Pliocene strata of St. Prest, France. In the fluvio-marine series have been found the _Cyclas omnica_ and the _Paludina marginata_, a species of mollusc still found in the South of France, but no longer inhabiting the British Isles. Above the forest bed and fluvio-marine series comes the well-known unstratified Norwich boulder till, containing immense blocks 6 or 8 feet in diameter, many of which must have come from Scandinavia, and above the unstratified till are a series of contorted beds of sand and gravel. This series may be considered to represent a period of intense glaciation. Above this again comes the middle drift of Mr. Searles Wood, junior, yielding shells which indicate, as is now generally admitted, a comparatively mild condition of climate. Upon this middle drift lies the upper boulder clay, which is well developed in South Norfolk and Suffolk, and which is of unmistakable glacial origin. Newer than all these are the Mundesley freshwater beds, which lie in a hollow denuded out of the foregoing series. In this formation a black peaty deposit containing seeds of plants, insects, shells, and scales and bones of fishes, has been found, all indicating a mild and temperate condition of climate. Among the shells there is, as in the forest bed, the _Paludina marginata_. And that an arctic condition of things in England followed is believed by Mr. Fisher and others, on the evidence of the “Trail” described by the former observer.