NOTES ON THE ANCIENT PHYSIOGRAPHY OF SOUTH ESSEX. 193
I owe my hearers an apology for the haphazard way in which
these notes from the transcript are thrown together ; but time has
failed me to-day to do more. My hope is that we may get some
identification of the ancient sites mentioned.
NOTES ON THE ANCIENT PHYSIOGRAPHY OF
SOUTH ESSEX.1
(With Map shaded to show the Physical Geography of South Essex).
By T. V. HOLMES, F.G.S., M.A.I. (Permanent Vice-President).
IN a paper read before the Geological Society in 1894, and pub-
lished in "The Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc," August, 1894, entitled,
"Further Notes on some Sections on the New Railway from
Romford to Upminster, and on the Relations of the Thames Valley
Beds to the Boulder Clay," I dwelt, inter alia, on the fragment of an
ancient silted-up stream-course of considerable size, seen in a cut-
ting at Romford.2 This old stream-course had eroded a hollow on
the surface of the London Clay, and was covered by gravel belong-
ing to the highest, and presumably oldest, terrace of the present
Thames Valley system. The material filling up this ancient stream-
course appeared to have been largely derived from the Boulder Clay,
small pebbles of Chalk being not uncommon. The rest of the
deposit consisted of dark silt, with interbedded sand and small
pebbles, chiefly flint. A considerable mass of Boulder Clay appeared
in another part of the same cutting, but farther southward, and the
relations between it and the old stream-course could not be seen,
though (as in the Hornchurch cutting) the Boulder Clay rested upon
the London Clay, and was covered by Thames Valley gravel. The
course of the old stream appeared to have been about east and west,
but its limits were clearly seen only on one side of the cutting. It was
evidently older than the gravel belonging to the Thames Valley system,
during the deposition of which most of it had been eroded away, and
which was seen overlying the fragment preserved. I also pointed out
that while the Boulder Clay, as a general rule, is only to be found at
heights of 200 ft. or more above the sea in the immediate district,
1 A paper read at the Ipswich meeting of the British Association, with some slight additions.
2 See also Essex Nat., vol. vii., pp. 1-14,—"The New Railway between Upminster and
Romford. Boulder-Clay beneath Old River Gravel at Hornchurch—Conclusions therefrom,"
with map and section.