100
ON THE NATURE OF SOME OF THE GRAVEL
PATCHES IN ESSEX.
" On the Relation of the Westleton Beds, or Pebbly Sands of Suffolk, to those of
Norfolk, and on their Extension Inland : with some Observations on the
Period of the Final Elevation and Denudation of the Weald and of the
Thames Valley, &c." By JOSEPH PRESTWICH, D.C.L,, F.R.S., F.G.S.,
&c. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, Vol XLVI. (1890), pp. 84-181.
THIS long and important paper is published partly in the Quart.
Journ. Geol. Soc. for February, 1890, partly in that for May.
Professor Prestwich begins with a review of the literature of the sub-
ject, in which the views of the Geological Surveyors, of Messrs Wood
and Harmer, together with those formerly expressed by himself, are
given. These Westleton Beds are so called from the place of that
name on the Suffolk coast between Southwold and Aldborough where
they are well developed. To give any notion of their exact strati-
graphical position is impossible, owing to the doubtfulness and
extreme minuteness of the sub-divisions made by various workers in
the Pliocene and Post Pliocene deposits, and to their adoption of
different names in certain localities for what may, or may not, be the
same tiny stratum, or its equivalent. Mr. H. B. Woodward (quoted
by Prestwich) remarks that no less than five sub-divisions have been
introduced into 30 feet of strata, and of these nearly all have two or
three names. Below is Prof. Prestwich's own classification. He
uses the double term "Westleton and Mundesley Series," because
at the former place the beds are marine, at the latter estuarine or
freshwater. But he adds that both these facies are local, and that