where the channel is deep, and the fishes may be discerned sporting in shoals.

The SOIL of this county is so exceedingly variable, the heavy, mixed, and light soils are so intermingled, that it is difficult to define the localities of each. Not only on one farm, but often in the same field, will this variety of soil be discovered. Though an accurate definition of the extent of each class of soil is thus rendered impossible, yet the general boundaries can be easily pointed out, and a close approximation to the truth will thus be arrived at. It is common to speak of soils as of three classes-heavy, mixed, and light; but there are five varieties that may be clearly defined-1st, Strong Loam; 2nd, Eastern Sand; 3rd, Western Sand; 4th, Rich Loam; 5th, Fen.

Strong Loam, or Heavy Land District.-This extends from Haverhill on the south-west to within a few miles of Beccles and Lowestoft on the north-east, and constitutes what is known as central Suffolk. It consists of a clayey loam, on a clayey or marly subsoil. Chalk pits are met with in some portions, and the soil in their immediate vicinity partakes more or less of the chalky character; and throughout, wherever a valley, with a rivulet is found, however small, the flat is generally deeper and richer soil, and the sloping land adjoining more tender and easily cultivated. About Weybread and Mendham the soil is in some places of a sandy nature, and the low hills that border the Waveney have frequently stiff clay on their summits, and light sandy land in the bottoms. The parishes of Ringsfield, Redisham, Weston, and part of Shadingfield, contain some very poor thin-skinned land upon an ordinary brick-earth substratum.

Eastern Sands, or Coast Lands.-The tract of land extending along the eastern side of the county, from the mouth of the Deben to Yarmouth, is more or less of a

sandy nature. A considerable portion is highly cultivated, but in some parts the soil is of a very inferior description and lying almost waste. Much of it is liable to blow from the root of the corn, and sometimes the men have been obliged to give up harrowing, from not being able to see where they had harrowed. From Yarmouth to Aldborough there are marshes, heaths, sandy loams, and barren spots; and from Hollesley Bay to Landguard Fort the sea encroaches on the high land. On the whole line of sea coast there are tracts of salt marshes, varying in value from 5s. to 25s. per acre, as they are more or less subject to the influence of the tides. From Ipswich race ground a long strip of heaths runs through Nacton, Rushmere, and Brightwell to near the Deben. These heaths extend about 10 miles, and are estimated to cover nearly 3000 acres of land. Whins, ferns, and ling grow in patches along most of these heaths; on others, nothing but ling. Belts of fir trees surround one of the heaths, which are mostly of stunted growth; and, along the whole, pits of great depth have been sunk to procure crag to cover the land. The heath land from Wilford Bridge to Sutton appears to be of better quality; but from Shottisham to Hollesley there is a long tract of barren heath; and a ride from Wickham Market to Orford, over Tunstall Heath, brings into view a large extent of heath and barren land. There is so great a difference in the quality of the land in the Eastern Sand district, that land may be found on nearly every farm, the value of which, to rent, varies from 5s. to 28s. per acre. In some parts of this district the sand lies to a considerable depth; in other parts the subsoil is chalk, marl, or crag, and here the great means of the improvement of the texture of the sandy soils is to be found. The admixture of the subsoil with the surface has contributed more than anything else to place the cultivation of the light lands of Suffolk in the first rank in the scale of farming.

The Western Sand District.-This district, extending from Beyton to Mildenhall, and from Newmarket to Brandon, embraces some of the worst descriptions of soils, much of it being a blowing sand, on a subsoil of chalk, or chalky clay. At Brandon, Thetford, Barnham, and Eriswell the chalk appears on the surface, and is never at a great depth, and the land in many cases is so sterile as to defy almost all attempts to bring it into a productive state. The worst description of soil exists at Lakenheath, Wangford, Icklingham, Cavendish, West Stow, and Thetford. The soil in the neighbourhood is better, being a gravelly loam, and in some places the character of heavy and light soils become intermingled. Throughout the eastern division of the county, chalk or marl is found to exist in such small quantities as to be unworthy of notice, and the most eastern place where chalk is found in quantities for building or agricultural purposes, is an angle that includes the villages of Bramford, Claydon, and Coddenham.

Rich Loam District. This district, extending from Felixstow to Hadleigh, comprises the greater part of Colneis and Samford Hundreds and is a fine tract of

deep rich soil. It is not only the best land in the county, but, as Arthur Young observed, much of it would rank among the best in England. It consists of a putrid vegetable mould, more inclined to sand than to clay, and is of extraordinary fertility. A well was dug in the parish of Walton, 30 feet in depth, without passing through the alluvial soil.

Fen District. This district occupies the extreme northwest corner of the county, and is of very small extent. It is bounded by the Ouse on the north, the river Lark on the west, and the villages of Mildenhall, Lakenheath, and Brandon on the south and east. The surface is generally peat or bog from five to eight feet in depth, overlying clay or marl, but on the borders the subsoil is often sand. So porous is the nature of the soil, that if

the dykes or water courses are deep, well opened, and but little water allowed to stand, surface draining is seldom required. Many thousand acres of land on the Fen skirts are warren.

Taking a bird's eye view of the county, the general arrangement of the soil is thus seen. Wherever a river or rivulet passes, the one, two, or three hundred yards of flat land adjoining its banks are deep alluvial soil, generally covered with grass, as marshes or meadows. Beyond this, as soon as the land rises, and for several miles in some instances, you find light and mixed soil, the one gradually merging into the other; and still higher up, as in the centre of the county, it either increases in stiffness to strong heavy land, or, as in other parts, to a burning sand. The boundary line between Newmarket and Haverhill, which divides Suffolk from Cambridgeshire-not consisting of any great valley or river, but passing over high land-is a continuation of the strong land which runs throughout central Suffolk.

The whole eastern side of England, from the confines of Devonshire on the south, to the north-west angle of Norfolk, may be regarded, GEOLOGICALLY, as a great sheet of chalk, covered more or less by tertiary strata of all ages, and broken through and denuded along an east and west line of disturbance. It forms the lowest stratum in every part of Suffolk, excepting the small space occupied by the fens. Throughout the hundred of Lackford the chalk either appears on the surface or is covered with a very moderate thickness of sand. The area colored as chalk, in most of our geological maps, forms the western sand district of Young's Agricultural Map. Further east, the chalk inclines rapidly, and is lost sight of beneath several hundred feet of clay, sand, and gravel. In some places, however, the chalk appears on the surface. At Claydon

the turnpike road is cut through it, and there are pits at Bramford and Coddenham. In boring for an artesian well at Stowmarket, the chalk was found 80 feet below the surface. It varied in solidity, and was 250 feet in thickness. Chalk is also the substratum under a great part of the strong loam district, bounded on the east and south by Halesworth, Woodbridge, Sudbury, and Clare, and where the soil rests on boulder clay, which, with granite, oolitic, and other foreign detritus of various kinds, covers a large area along the valley of the Waveney, and throughout the centre of Suffolk.

In the eastern part of the county the "Crag" displays its most interesting features. To Mr. Edmund Charlesworth belongs the honor of being the first to point out scientifically, the characteristics of the Suffolk crag. He divides that deposit into three successive periods. The oldest, from its abundance of corals, he termed the Coralline Crag. The second, from its peculiar ochreous color (produced by the presence of hydrooxide of iron), he termed the Red Crag. The third, from its containing many fossil mammalian remains, he termed the Mammaliferous Crag, considering it a more recent deposit than the two preceding. The mammalian crag rests on the red or Suffolk crag, which, in its turn, rests on the coralline crag, and that again sometimes on the London clay, and sometimes on chalk. The mammalian crag may be seen most advantageously in the immediate neighbourhood of Southwold, and at Thorp Common, near Sizewell. The coralline crag is very limited in extent, ranging only over an area of about 20 miles in length and 3 or 4 miles in breadth, between the rivers Alde and Stour. At Aldborough, and Orford this crag is beautiful in appearance, and in several places forms a complete coral reef, and in the neighbourhood of Aldborough there are three coralline crag pits, very rich in corals, shells, echini, etc. At