NOTES.
19
Blocks of Sandstone near Orsett and at Corringham, Essex.—During
the time I was at Grays, engaged in the Denehole explorations, I visited, in com-
pany with Mr. E. A. Fitch, two blocks of sandstone in the neighbourhood of
Hangman's Wood. One, on Orsett Heath, by the side of the path at the extreme
west of the old gravel-pit, is probably the block referred to by Mr. Worthington
Smith in his note in the Essex Naturalist (vol. i., page 8), who describes it as
the largest block he had heard of as occurring in the gravels near London. Our
measurements were as follows :—Extreme length, 5 ft. 8 in. ; breadth, 2 ft. 8 in. ;
depth, 1 ft. 10 in. On one or two sides, the surface of the stone was mammillated.
The substance was very hard, and it was with difficulty that we detached a
fragment for examination, which the Rev. A. W. Rowe is inclined to pronounce
as a chip from a Carboniferous sandstone, but possibly Neocomian, We could
detect no traces of stripe. A labourer told us that he remembered the block for many
years, and that he thought it came out of the neighbouring gravel-pit. Mr. Wor-
thington Smith has found palaeolithic flint flakes in the same gravel-pit, and curiously
enough, when Mr. W. Greatheed was photographing the stone, my brother, B. G.
Cole, who was to be in the picture, was directed to pretend to be in the act of
examining some specimen, and on picking up a stone for that purpose, found it
to be a good neolithic flake! We came upon another block at the side of the
cross roads leading from Baker Street to Orsett Heath and from Stanford-le-Hope
to Hangman's Wood. An old villager assured us that it formerly stood at the
corner of the roads to protect the bank, and that he remembered it in that position
for thirty years past ; it was removed to the green siding of the Stanford-le-Hope
road about a year ago. It is very irregularly shaped, composed of a very indurated
sandstone, which Mr. Rowe thinks may be Neocomian, mammillated as in the
Orsett Heath specimen, but with no traces of striation. We measured it with
the following results :—Extreme length, 3 ft.; greatest breadth, 2 ft. 6 in.; and
average thickness, I ft. Mr. W. Greatheed kindly took a photograph of this
block also. Our "oldest inhabitant" told us of another block on a neighbouring
farm, but we had not time to go in search of it. There was a gravel-pit in a field
hard by. Mr. Fitch and Mr. John Wallis perfectly remember a large block of
stone standing formerly at the entrance to Hangman's Wood from the road from
Grays. We concluded that this must have been broken up, as we could discover
no traces of it. Mr. W. Greatheed has sent me a photograph of a block in the
village of Corringham, which, judging from the picture, is oval in form and
about 2 ft. 6in. its longest diameter, and with a markedly mammillated surface.
Mr. Greatheed writes :—"The Corringham boulder was ploughed up forty years
ago in the Barn Field of the Heard Farm, but is now used as a mounting stone
at the old Hall (H. C. Long, Esq.)" The Rev. A. W. Rowe, F.G.S., in a letter
to Mr. Greatheed, writes as follows of this and the above-mentioned Orsett
Heath stones :—"They are both, undoubtedly, sandstones, and not quartzites. It
is extremely difficult to say what these sandstones are, but the majority of those
which I have found about here belong either to the Carboniferous series or to the
Neocomian, and I am inclined to think that your boulders may belong to the latter.
The Carboniferous sandstones have probably come from the North-west of
England, and the Neocomian from Lincolnshire ; but it is not safe to say more than
that in the case of unfossiliferous sandstones, especially when one has such small
pieces to judge from." I hope that our members will do their best to register
in the pages of the Essex Naturalist, details of all the Essex boulders that
may be in their neighbourhoods. Records should give measurements and other
particulars, and should be accompanied with a fragment of the stone (as
large as can be taken without disfigurement), in order that expert's opinion
may be had as to the species of rock to which it belongs. I may refer, in
conclusion, to Mr. Rowe's paper on "Some Essex Boulders" (E. N. i.117).
as affording some valuable information in this connection. —William Cole,
November, 1887.
Large Basse (Labrax lupus, Cuv) in the Blackwater. — This hot summer
has proved an unusually good season for grey mullet in this river, and a few large
ones have been taken, also several large Basse. Joe Handley has taken three of