117
SOME ESSEX BOULDERS.
By REV. A. W. ROWE, M.A., F.G.S.
[Read April 30th, 1887.]
In the Essex Naturalist, page 8, a note from Mr. Worthington
G. Smith is inserted relative to sandstone and conglomerate blocks
found in Essex.
A considerable number of these boulders occur in this part of
Essex, and are generally found in the immediate vicinity of farm-
yards or inn yards. I have ascertained in the case of some of them,
that they have been dug up on the farm, and then brought to the
farm-yard to be used as mounting stones, or for some similar pur-
pose ; and I have little doubt that most of them have come to their
present position in this way. Of the conglomerate, smaller pieces
occur frequently, but larger boulders are somewhat rare. A mass of
considerable size is lying opposite to "Melbournes," in Great Leighs
Parish, a farm occupied by Mr. T. Gooday ; it is on the opposite
side of the road to the farm, and the greater part of it lies buried in
the loose soil ; another block of fair size was found on Bourchiers,
a farm in Little Dunmow, belonging to Mr. Worrin, and I think it is
now built up in his fernery. But large blocks and masses of
sandstone are fairly common : at "Prince's Halfyards", a farm about a
mile and a half north of Felstead, there is a very large boulder, forming
part of a wall in the farm-yard ; it was dug up on the farm, and
dragged to the farm-yard some years ago, I am informed, and made
the beginning of the wall. It measures five feet nine inches in
length, is three feet three inches out of the ground in height, and two
feet in thickness, but as it lies deep in the ground, the height must
be fully four feet six inches. It is a mass of yellowish Carboniferous
sandstone, rather coarse in texture, and has weathered to a greyish
colour. Apparently, in common with nearly all the blocks of Carbon-
iferous-sandstone in this neighbourhood, it is unfossiliferous. At
North End Place, about two miles south-west of Felstead, there are
several of these sandstone boulders of considerable size, two of them
are of very close, compact texture, and a third, which measures
about three feet by two feet, is of a whitish colour, and con-
tains an abundance of grains of glauconite. Some thirty blocks
are built in at the side of a raised roadway, as supports, in the
centre of the village in Felstead, all seemingly unfossiliferous except
one, which is a mass of dark reddish sandstone, rather soft, and