79
NOTES OF GEOLOGICAL RAMBLES IN THE
BRAINTREE DISTRICT IN CONNECTION
WITH THE EASTER EXCURSION OF THE
CLUB.
By W. H. DALTON, F.G.S.
[Read May 17th, 1890.]
A NOTICE was appended to the circular of the Kelvedon and
Coggeshall excursion, inviting such members as felt disposed
for a little preliminary geologising to take part in the investiga-
tion of certain points in the Braintree district not fully dealt with by
the Geological Survey in 1871-1872. The results were to have been
laid before the Club at Coggeshall, but time did not permit this,
and in the interval that has since elapsed, further evidence has been
collected, and is incorporated in the following notes.
The gravel pits on both sides of the Hoppit brook at Braintree
show, besides the Glacial gravel, a large amount of sandy loam and
re-sorted gravel, draping the slopes and resting on ledges of the
older material, being in fact residual deposits of the period of exca-
vation of the valley. They have yielded to the researches of our
member, the Rev. J. W. Kenworthy, a number of palaeolithic imple-
ments, and bones of horse and elephant. They are well worthy of
study, although from their mode of occurrence they cannot be shown on
the one-inch map, and indeed were for the most part regarded partly
as recent rainwash and partly as Glacial gravel in situ. The bones
and implements, of course, prove re-sorting.
In Mr. Brown's brickyard south-west of the Silk Mill (called
Meg's Mill on the map) there is a separately-mappable patch of
these Post-glacial beds, consisting of loams passing southward into
coarse sands, the whole being caught on a shelf of the London Clay
at a time when the floor of the valley, of which this shelf is a rem-
nant, was some twenty feet above its present level. Here a tooth of
Elephas antiquus (?)has been found, and careful search would probably
discover other bones, shells and flint implements. The area of this
Post-glacial patch as shown on the Geological Survey Map requires
extension southward some fifty yards, to take in the letters it of
Sandpit. Nearer the silk mill, some brick-earth is worked under the
modern alluvium, and though there is a vast interval between the
periods, there is very little difference in the composition of the