10 NOTES ON AN ALLUVIAL DEPOSIT IN THE CANN VALLEY.
The Lexden beds are probably of about the same age, the Colne,
which formed them, having eroded its channel some twenty feet since
the deposition of the brick-earth, &c.6 These Clacton and Lexden
beds seem, by their position, and by their contained fossils, to be of
the same age as the lower brick-earth terraces of the Thames and
Blackwater Valleys, the Copford bed being probably synchronous
with some of the higher terraces of the Thames.
Next in order come the gravels and brick-earths of the Chelmer
about Writtle, and, lastly, the modern alluvium, of which the Chignal
bed is an early portion, no longer receiving the additions which every
flood leaves on the still more recent plains.7
We cannot divide the Post-Glacial period into sharply-defined sec-
tions, but may say that the earlier deposits contain fossil shells now
confined to the Continent; the number of such slowly diminishes,
leaving a list purely British, not identical with that of the district,
but differing in both directions, and gradually assimilating to it, and
when this final term is reached, the word fossil becomes a misnomer,
all being recent.
I have an impression that I have not infrequently seen Cyclostoma
elegans in peaty deposits, but the only note I can find of such refers
to a point seven miles north-west of Colchester. It is on the gentle
slope (London Clay) of the south side of the Stour valley, where the
detention of the calcareous water issuing from the Drift has caused a
deposit of marl and peat. Some of the Helices resembled H. fruticum
rather than H. rufescens, but none were authoritatively determined
—which I now regret. The exact spot is east of the m in Daw's
Farm, on the one-inch map 48 N.W., a quarter of a mile north of
Well House, and half a mile westward of Wormingford Hall. It is
in six-inch map Essex XVIII., two miles from Bures Station.
The Custom of Borough English at Maldon.—Allow me to correct an
error in the Editorial note on page 233, vol. ii of the Essex Naturalist. The
facts are that lands of freehold tenure in Maldon descend according to the custom
of Borough English, while the copyholds descend according to the customs of the
respective manors of which they are held, and these customs follow the rules of
the common law. The same mistake occurs in Durrant's "Handbook for Essex,"
page 148.—G. F. Beaumont, Coggeshall.
6 My former colleague, Mr. H. B. Woodward, objects (Geol. Mag., 1880, p. 280) to my use of
the term Post-Glacial '' for deposits yielding remains of Bison, Elephas antiquus. E. primigenius,
Felis spelaea, Hippopotamus, Rhinoceros, etc. ; for these forms are so distinct from those which
are known to have inhabited this country in Post-Glacial times." He reiterates this unintelligible
-statement on p. 383. The forms in question characterize the British Post-Glacial deposits every-
where, and may be found in every list of Post-Glacial Mammalia.
Height above present stream-bed is about the best index of age.