A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK the agricultural characters and the aspect of the land are most largely due.' GLACIAL LOAM The earliest Glacial Drift is a stony loam which underlies the middle Glacial sands and gravels in the cliff between Hopton and Gorton, where the sequence in descending order of Chalky Boulder Clay, sands, and loam with occasional boulders, led John Gunn to recognize an Upper and Lower Boulder Clay.^ This stony loam, 21 feet thick, occurs at Blundeston and at Somerleyton, where no doubt it forms a southerly continuation of the ' Contorted Drift ' of the Cromer coast. It contains boulders of igneous rock and fragments of marine shells, and may in general terms be regarded as a Lower Boulder Clay, or Lower Glacial Drift. It is used for brick-making. Higher up along the borders of the Waveney valley there are other beds of loam near North Cove, to the south of Beccles, at Withers- dale, Weybread, Stuston, Palgrave and Redgrave. These appear to underlie the main mass of Chalky Boulder Clay (Upper Glacial), but they cannot in all cases be definitely assigned to the Lower Glacial Drift. The fact must be borne in mind that the Chalky Boulder Clay when much weathered and decalcified becomes a brown stony loam, while in the Middle Glacial sands and gravels there are lenticular masses of laminated loam. Some of these beds, moreover, are rather difficult to distinguish from the earlier Chillesford Clay. Hence there are many difficulties in the identification of particular beds of loam in Suffolk, and such difficulties give rise to divergent opinions. Under these circum- stances it will be best to mention briefly the more important beds of loam, without in all cases indicating their relative ages. The brickyard at Withersdale Cross, south-east of Harleston, showed 1 2 feet of laminated brickearth with alternations of sand and gravel, much contorted towards the surface by glacial action. Underlying the brickearth was a considerable thickness of sand and gravel. Somewhat similar beds were noted by Mr. W. H. Dalton to the south of Mendham Priory, where pottery works formerly existed.' More definite evidence of Lower Glacial or Contorted drift occurs in Weybread brickyard, where there is a brown stony loam with fragments of Cyprina and other shells. Here the Chalky Boulder Clay overlies and at one point dovetails into the loam. Similar loam occurs at Sotterly, and sandy loam with streaks of chalky loam underlies the Boulder Clay at Walpole near Halesworth.* ' See 'General View of the Agriculture of Suffolk,' ed. 3, (1804,) by Arthur Young; and ' Farming of Suffolk,' by Hugh Raynbird, Joui~n. Roy. jlgiic. Soc. vii. 261. 2 J. Trimmer, ^arl. Journ. Gcol. Soc. xiv. 171 ; Rose, Geo/ogist, iii. 137. 3 Whitaker and Dalton, ' Geology of the countrj' around Halcsworth and Harleston,' Geo/. Survey (1887), p. 16.
- Whitaker and Dalton, op. cit. p. 19.
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