118 DISCOVERY OF MAMMALIAN REMAINS AT GREAT YELDHAM.
the various streams, lower beds are exposed. They appear to have
been deposited in a slight hollow on the surface of the Boulder Clay.
Though, at present, a tiny stream flows through them and empties
itself into the Colne close to the White Hart Inn, they are evidently
not deposits laid down by the stream, but beds which already
existed when it began to flow. They are, therefore, decidedly more
ancient than the beds of brick-earth, etc., in the valley of the Cam
at Chelmsford, about twenty miles S.S.W., in which mammoth and
other remains have been discovered (see Essex Naturalist,
ix.. pp. 10-20), for at Chelmsford the brick-earth is a deposit not
merely post-Glacial, but one made by a river belonging to the existing
system. A comparison between the mammalian fauna found at
Chelmsford and at Great Yeldham shows that while Elephas primi-
genius and Bos tauras var. primigenius are common to both places,
the Yeldham Rhinoceros is the small-nosed form, R. leptorhinus,
that of Chelmsford the woolly Rhinoceros, R. tichorhinus. The
Hippopotamus appears in the Chelmsford, but not in the Yeldham
list. However, it is satisfactory to know that the preservation
of any mammalian remains which may in future be found there is
ensured by the near residence of Messrs. Wade and Goodchild
at Great Yeldham.
It may be worth noting here, for the benefit of Essex or other
photographers of geological sections, that we saw an extremely clear
and beautiful section at Great Yeldham, a few yards south of the
stream which flows into the Colne south of the White Hart Inn.
And we passed another, of less but considerable interest, on the
western side of Sandy Lane, on the outskirts of Castle Hedingham.
Both are in the gravel belonging to the Glacial Period which under-
lies the Boulder Clay. And we were pleased to see the Great
Yeldham Oak still standing at the junction of three roads near
Stone Bridge, though only by the aid of much "restoration" in the
shape of brickwork about its base.