THE PAST AND FUTURE OF THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB. 79
ances now visible are insufficient in themselves to demonstrate the
truth of my view. The pit seems to have been little worked for
many years, and any deneholes, supposing their existence, would
probably be thought by the workmen to be simply places formerly
used by smugglers, an opinion which, doubtless, would also have
commended itself to their more learned neighbours. I have there-
fore but little hope of ever receiving any confirmation, or the reverse,
of the view to which I incline, and can only express my regret that
the chalk-pit attained its present size in the pre-scientific age.
To return to Essex. After passing through the scene of the
damage done by the Essex earthquake, a few days after the occur-
rence, it occurred to Mr. W. Cole and me, that we might as well visit
Pictsbury Ramparts, about three miles N.W. of Colchester, before
returning to London. The camp appeared on the one-inch ordnance
map as a complete oval. When we reached the spot we found that
only about one-fourth of the oval remained, the rest having been
destroyed so completely, that but for the map we could hardly have
made out where it had once been. The part preserved had escaped
destruction owing to its having been within the boundaries of a wood,
the rest being now arable land. We shortly after met the farmer on
whose land the camp stood, who gave us some account of its destruc-
tion many years before the date of our visit. He remarked that it
had been a pretty place, and that the ramparts had been as high as a
young tree near, which had attained a height of about thirty feet. Of
course the camp's destruction had been looked upon at the time
simply as an agricultural improvement; we were glad, however, to
note that it did not seem to have been a paying operation. The
fragment remaining is a very fine piece of work, but as the camp is
three miles from the nearest railway station, and is not on a conspi-
cuous, tourist-frequented hill, it is not even mentioned in Murray's
Handbook.
But if the ancient camps of Essex do not attract the attention of
the passing traveller, as do those on the Chalk of Sussex or Wiltshire,
much less likely to be noticed, even by those making a careful study
of the prehistoric antiquities of the county, are the red mounds of
the marshes north and west of Mersea Island, described in the very
interesting paper read to us by Mr. Stopes. These mounds, as
he told us, have been largely removed from time to time, to
manure the heavy land near them, and evidently need protection
even more than the camps. Our energies should therefore be