GEOLOGY which became silted up with clay, and then supported a vegetation whose remains indicate a temperate flora. Later deposits of black peaty earth prove that the climate became colder, indeed Arctic or sub-Arctic ; and these were succeeded by somewhat torrential deposits yielding Palaeolithic implements.' At St. Cross (Sancroft) near South Elmham a deposit somewhat similar to the bed at Hoxne with temperate flora was found by Mr. C. Candler. It consists of peaty loam and clay evidently deposited in a lake or pool that occupied a hollow in the Boulder Clay. Bones of elephant as well as seeds of plants were obtained.^ At South- wold a peaty bed has been exposed at the base of the north cliff, but its age is uncertain.^ The gravel and loam or brickearth of the present rivers are found here and there along their margins above the level of the ordinary alluvium. The greater part of these accumulations appear to be of Pleistocene age, as remains of the elephant, rhinoceros and hippopotamus have been found in several localities. In thickness the deposits vary from a few feet up to about 25 feet. They occur along the Waveney at Homersfield, Wortwell and Redden- hall, at Bungay where the Common is based on a bar of gravel bordered by a loop of the river, and at Beccles racecourse. They fringe the Ouse valley, and by Warren House at Santon Downham curious caves were described by Sir John Evans, some of sufficient magnitude to allow of a man standing inside. They were formed in consequence of the lower beds being let down into hollows of the Chalk, owing to its dis- solution by water charged with carbonic acid.* Extensive deposits occur in the Lark valley above Mildenhall, while along the Stour and its tributaries there are gravels at Long Melford, Sudbury, Nayland, Lavenham and Brantham. Perhaps the most interesting deposit is the brickearth at Stutton, which has yielded Corbicula fluminalis, Hydrobia marginata. Helix fruticum and other mollusca, as well as remains of elephant.' Along the borders of the Gipping and Orwell, at Needham and Sproughton, and along the Deben there are occasional beds of loam and gravel, while at the north end of Southwold a small tract of brickearth yielding remains of elephant was at one time exposed. Evidence of the antiquity of man was obtained at a very early date in Suffolk, although its significance was not until long after realized. Thus in the year 1797 John Frere called attention to the finding of stone implements at Hoxne,* and this discovery, although briefly referred
- 'The Relation of Palxolithic Man to the Glacial Epoch,' by C. Reid, Rep. Brit. Assoc, for 1896,
1897, p. 400 ; 'Origin of British Flora,' pp. 52, 77. " ^art. Journ. Geol. Soc. xlv. 504 ; Reid, 'Origin of British Flora,' p. 90. 3 H. B. Woodward, Geol. Mag. (1896), p. 354.
- Geo!. Mag. (1868), p. 444.
" S. V. Wood, ' Crag Mollusca,' i. and ii. 304, etc. ; Whitaker, ' Geology of Ipswich,' p. 96. ^ Archaoh^a, xiii. 204. See also J. Evans, ibid, xxxviii. 299, and ' Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain,' ed. 2 (1897), pp. 543-7^ ; Prestwich, Phil. Trans, i860, p. 304 ; C. Reid, Rep. Brit. Assoc, for 1 896. I 25 4
