336 PLEISTOCENE GEOLOGY OF THE THAMES VALLEY.
Nuts imbedded in a tree-trunk.—About the middle of December last,
some large elm trees were cut down in a field belonging to the late Mrs.
Mildred, at Chigwell. At the base of one of the trees, about 5 feet from the
ground, in the centre of a trunk 18 inches in diameter, was found a quantity
of nuts -the fruit of the Hazel They were most perfect, but on being
opened, the kernels were perished. There was no opening in the trunk or
any communication of any kind with the outside, so that these nuts may have
been deposited by a squirrel more than a century ago. It appears from
several instances of the kind that trees quickly close up articles deposited in a
chink or hollow. I exhibited a blade of a razor extracted from the heart of a
horn-beam in the Forest at the meeting of the Club on February 25th, 1899
(ante page 27).—S. Arthur Sewell, Buckhurst Hill.
[Several occurrences of a similar kind are recorded in our publications.
In 1883 Mr. Edinger gave an account of the finding of a bird's nest with eggs
in it, enclosed in the wood of an elm tree (see Journal of Proceedings, E.F.C,
vol. iv., iii.), and Mr. C. E. Benham in 1894 recorded an example of inscribed
letters having been covered up for many years by the growth of the woody
tissue of an elm near Colchester. Essex Nat., vol. viii., p. 88.—Ed.]
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PLEISTOCENE
GEOLOGY OF THE THAMES VALLEY.
I. THE GRAYS THURROCK AREA,
PART 1.
By MARTIN A. C. HINTON and A. S. KENNARD.
WITH A SUB-SECTION ON THE FOSSIL FISHES.
By E. T. NEWTON, F.R.S., F.G.S.
[Read October 27th. 1900.]
I. INTRODUCTION.
It is to be doubted if any geological period is of greater
interest than the Pleistocene, for it is the borderland of geology
and history. From the early days of geological enquiry to the
present time, it has attracted the attention of many of the ablest
intellects who have striven to unravel the tangled web of the
earth's past history. Dr. Buckland, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir
Joseph Prestwich, William Whitaker, Professor James Geikie,
the Woods, father and son, Alfred Tylor, John Brown,
F. W. Harmer and many others too numerous to mention
have endeavoured to read the secret hidden in the beds
often spoken of as the "Drift," and yet in spite of this
research there is no branch of science where there is greater