Page:Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man.djvu/239

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CHAP. XII.
OF NORFOLK CLIFFS.
221

feet in perpendicular height. This appearance of concentric arrangement around a nucleus is, nevertheless, delusive, being produced by the intersection of beds bent into a convex shape; and that which seems the nucleus being, in fact, the innermost bed of the series, which has become partially visible by the removal of the protuberant portions of the outer layers.

To the north of Cromer are other fine illustrations of contorted drift reposing on a floor of chalk horizontally stratified and having a level surface. These phenomena, in themselves sufficiently difficult of explanation, are rendered still more anomalous by the occasional inclosure in the drift of huge fragments of chalk many yards in diameter. One striking instance occurs west of Sherringham, where an enormous pinnacle of chalk, between seventy and eighty feet in height, is flanked on both sides by vertical layers of loam, clay, and gravel (fig. 32).

Fig. 32

Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man Fig. 32.png

Included pinnacle of chalk at Old Hythe point, west of Sherringham.

d Chalk with regular layers of chalk flints. c Layer called 'the pan,' of chalk, flints, and marine shells of recent species, cemented by oxide of iron.


This chalky fragment is only one of many detached masses which have been included in the drift, and forced along with