THE "SALTING MOUNDS" OF ESSEX. 99
quantities of charcoal and wood ashes, though occurring very irre-
gularly ; but I found no trace of coal in any shape or form. Clinkers
in some places, were not only common, but almost abundant, and
showed that great heat must have been thrown out by the fires that
burnt them.
In only one instance have I heard of or seen a natural cross-
section of any mound, and the position of this happens to be more
readily accessible than any other that I know of. It is quite close
to the high road from Colchester to Mersea, there consisting of a
raised causeway, called the Strood, crossing the creek mentioned
above as connecting the Colne and Blackwater. This mound is
about five feet thick, and is intersected by a small creek much
haunted by crabs. Of the little pottery it yielded, two pieces were
Roman turned ware, the only occurrence of such pottery in my
researches. There was also much cellular semi-vitrified earth and
burnt clay, with impressions of the sea-grass, Enteromorpha com-
pressa. This mound has also its upper surface left in a series of
narrow stetches, giving evidence of cultivation during Saxon times,
when that form of tillage was (I have understood) usually followed.
Mr. H. Laver, F.L.S., of Colchester, tells me that another mound,
at Tollesbury, which I have not yet seen, was also tilled during this
period, and, having been apparently abandoned to the sea, it remains
outside the sea-wall, still retaining the characteristic narrow stetches.
I have no idea of the total number of these mounds in Britain, or
even in Essex, but it must be considerable, when, after centuries of
destruction, eighteen still remain between Virley and the Strood, a
distance of only six miles. I am told that they exist in Kent, along
the wide rivers of Suffolk, on the Norfolk coast, in Lincolnshire, York-
shire, and Durham. Still, I suppose we have them in the greatest
number and of the largest size in Essex, which is a matter of some
importance if their complete and thorough investigation should ever
be undertaken by any scientific society or individual. It is some-
what curious that they should be quite peculiar to our own coasts,
and they are entirely different from the "kitchen-middens" of
Denmark and Scotland.
Another curious fact in connection with these mounds is that they
invariably extend quite down to the London clay, which clearly
shows that the clay, at the time they were formed, was not covered
by alluvium, or that the men who made them always cleared the site
first down to the clay. When we remember the acreage they cover
F 2