CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The Thaw.--Cromer.--Prehistoric Remains.
The thaw was accompanied by torrents of rain for more than a week. Atthe end of that time the boys were sitting in the boat-house making uptheir Note-book, when Mr. Meredith entered and said to them,--
"Will you drive with me to Cromer? I hear that a large portion of thecliff has fallen away and exposed a bed containing the bones and remainsof prehistoric elephants and other mammalia, and all the geologists ofthe country are going there. I thought we might as well see thesewonderful relics of the past. What do you say?"
"We should like it above all things," said Frank for the others; and Mr.Merivale's horses were forthwith harnessed to the waggonette, and theystarted. The rain had ceased, and a cold, white sun shone out of a whitespace in the leaden sky.
The town of Cromer is the easternmost part of England, and it is builton the summit of a gravel-hill, which the sidelong sweeping tides eataway little by little and year by year. It is said that the church ofold Cromer lies buried under the sea half a mile from the present shore.Immediately in front of the village the cliff is plated and faced withflints and protected by breakwaters, but on either side the soft earthis loosened by the frosts and rains, and undermined by the tidalcurrents, which, running nearly north and south, sweep the debris awayinstead of piling it at the foot of the cliff.
Putting the horses up at the principal inn, they walked to the cliffbelow the lighthouse, where a portion of the high cliff had slid intothe sea. In one place a recent storm had swept the fallen mass of gravelaway and exposed at the bottom a portion of the "forest bed." Here threeor four gentlemen, presumably geologists, were freely engaged in pokingand digging. One man was tugging hard at a huge bone which projected outof the cliff; another was carefully unveiling the stump of a fossiltree. Here and there were the stumps of trees--oaks and firs, andothers, with their spreading roots intact, just as ages ago they hadstood and flourished; and between these ancient stumps were the bonesand the teeth of elephant, hippopotamus, and rhinoceros, deer of tendifferent sorts, bears, tigers, and many another animal, the like, orthe prototype of which, are now found in tropical regions alone. Theboys were very much struck with the sight of these remains of theanimals which lived before the Flood, and as they wandered about,finding here a tooth and there a bone, and then the stem of a strangetree, they amused themselves by reconstructing in imagination theluxuriant woods teeming with savage monsters which once stood on a levelwith the shore, and speculating upon the causes which led to the pilingup of the gravel strata which now cover them to such a depth.
"Are these animal deposits peculiar to Cromer, Mr. Meredith?" askedDick.
"No. You can scarcely dig anywhere in Norfolk in similar depositswithout coming upon these remains; this is the case in Holland andBelgium also, so that there is positive evidence that the German Oceanis of comparatively recent origin, the two countries having once beenconnected by a great plain, a portion of which is now covered withwater. From the bottom of the sea the fishermen often dredge up bonesand fragments of trees similar to those in the base of this cliff."
The short winter day soon drew on to dusk, and they strolled on to thepier to see the sun set in the sea on this the east coast of England.The land so juts out, and to the northward the water so bites into theland, that not only does the sun rise from the sea, but it also sets init.
The surf-crested waves which broke heavily against the black breakwaterwere red and lurid with the sunset light, and in fantastic masses,flooded with red and orange, the clouds gathering about the descendingsun. And then, as the strange glare faded away and the grey dusk settledover the chafing sea, a white light shot out from the lighthouse tower,and traced a gleaming pathway over sea, pier, houses, and woods, as itrevolved with steady purpose.