V.—Some Suggestions on the Cromer Forest Bed

Like many other geologists at the present time, I have been engaged in reading Mr. Clement Reid's Memoir on the Geology of the Country around Cromer—reading it, I may say, with mingled feelings of pleasure and pain;—pleasure, at the amount of interesting and valuable matter which he has assiduously unearthed; and dissatisfaction at his attempts to destroy one of the cherished convictions of childhood—faith in the Cromer Forest Bed! Mr. Reid evidently does not believe in the Cromer Forest Bed; but then what would a Manual of Geology be without it? This either he or his superior officers have felt, and the name “Forest Bed” has therefore been retained for a bed which, according to his own confession, “least deserves the name.” This course, though illogical, is no doubt a concession to popular geological prejudice.