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CONTENTS
| PAGE | |
| Geography of the Fenland | [1] |
| Subsidence of the Valley of the Cam | [2] |
| Turbiferous and Areniferous Series | [3] |
| Absence of Elephant and Rhinoceros in Turbiferous Series | [6] |
| Absence of Peat in Areniferous Series | [6] |
| Fen Beds not all Peat | [7] |
| Sections in Alluvium | [7] |
| Peat; Trees etc.: Tarn and Hill Peat; Spongy Peat and Floating Islands; Bog-oak and Bog-iron | [13] |
| Marl: Shell Marl and Precipitated Marl | [17] |
| The Wash: Cockle Beds (Heacham):Buttery Clay (Littleport) | [18] |
| Littleport District | [18] |
| Buttery Clay | [19] |
| The Age of the Fen Beds | [20] |
| Palaeontology of Fens | [20] |
| Birds | [25] |
| Man | [27] |
| Description of the Shippea man by Prof. A. Macalister | [30] |
Geography of the Fenland.
The Fenland is a buried basin behind a breached barrier. It is the "drowned" lower end of a valley system in which glacial, marine, estuarine, fluviatile, and subaerial deposits have gradually accumulated, while the area has been intermittently depressed until much of the Fenland is now many feet below high water in the adjoining seas.
The history of the denudation which produced the large geographical features upon which the character of the Fenland depends needs no long discussion, as there are numerous other districts where different stages of the same action can be observed.
In the Weald for instance where the Darent and the Medway once ran off higher ground over the chalk to the north, cutting down their channels through what became the North Downs, as the more rapidly denuded beds on the south of the barrier were being lowered. The character of the basin is less clear in this case because it is cut off by the sea on the east, but the cutting down of the gorges pari passu with the denudation of the hinterland can be well seen.