ON THE BOULDER-CLAY IN ESSEX. 201
merits, and with large, almost unworn, flints and quartz pebbles,
which is clearly either Boulder-Clay, or debris of Boulder-Clay. The
pit in which it occurs was visited by the Essex Field Club on May
25, 1889 (Essex Nat., vol. iii., pp. 208-9). It is therefore clear
to me that the ice-sheet surmounted the Brentwood and Warley
hills, as well as the Epping hills, and I have no doubt that the map
correctly shows Boulder-Clay on the intermediate hills of Chigwell
Row, Lambourne End, and Havering ; all of which hills I have visited,
but without finding very good sections. The only hill in this part of
Essex about which I feel any doubt is Billericay, but there are a
certain number of almost unworn flints in the gravel at Norsey
Wood, on the eastern end of the Billericay hills, which is some
evidence of the presence of the ice-sheet, and I believe myself that
it was surmounted by the ice. The evidence is not, however, con-
clusive ; but, with the exception of Billericay, I think it is clearly
proved that the great ice-sheet was not confined to the valleys, but
actually passed over the hills of Essex at least as far south as Warley
Common.
Fossil Mammalia at Clacton-on-Sea.—Mr. Edwin R. Ransome, of
Rushmere Cottage, North Side, Wandsworth Common, wrote as follows to the
"Daily News" of 29th September, 1890 : "During the last month or two
several visitors to Clacton have found on the beach some remains of these extinct
animals, traces of which may be met with at low tide. Some weeks ago, whilst
several of us were searching for these relics of bygone ages, one of the Misses
Rouse, of Watford, descried in the sand something unusual, which, on digging
out, proved to be part of the head and neck of an Elephas antiquus. Some
portions of it crumbled to pieces, but we secured two teeth, the palate or roof of
the mouth, portions of two tusks, and several fangs of teeth. The teeth measure
about 121/2 inches one way by 61/2 inches another way, and are nearly three inches
thick, each one weighing about eleven pounds. These are in very fair condition,
the enamel being hard enough to resist the action of a file. The measurement
from the bone of the neck to the palate was about thirty inches. The portions of
the two tusks are very brittle, being of about five inches diameter at the base.
The whole was embedded in a mixture of clay, crag, and sand. Several times
when the tide was low I dug round the spot, and found some small cellular
portions of the skull, but the returning tide prevented any very thorough search.
One of the ladies referred to had a few weeks previously found another tooth of
the same character about 100 yards from the spot. Portions of bones and antlers
of deer, known as Cervus brownii, were also found. Visitors to Clacton interested
in such things may do well to search for them at low water near the first
Martello tower."