244
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
end of the journey was near. In the midst are situated the two little villages of
Virley and Salcott, which face one another from opposite sides of Salcott
Creek.
At Virley the Rev. E. Musselwhite and Miss Musselwhite, who took great
interest in the visit, joined the ramblers, and a walk of nearly a mile over the
saltings, brought all to their destination, the site of the Red Hills on Copt
Hall Marsh. To quote the excellent report of the meeting in the columns of the
Essex County Standard, "here the marsh showed a large circular area slightly
raised and composed of reddish earth plentifully strewn with fragments of
primitive pottery. The rabbits of Wigborough had made the most of this oasis
of light soil in the impenetrable clay desert of the marsh and their burrowings
had served a useful purpose in exposing a good deal of the subterranean condition
of things. Nettles, which appear to abhor a heavy soil as much as the rabbits
do, had also found their opportunity and were growing profusely in this isolated
circle of lighter earth."
'' There is a story of Cuvier that when appealed to by the Academicians as to
whether a crab might be defined as a red insect that walked backwards, he replied
that the definition was au admirable one, and he could only make three correc-
tions—a crab was not red, was not an insect, and did not walk backwards. In
somewhat the same spirit it was cynically objected by one of the party that the
red hills are neither hills nor red !
" Strictly speaking the objection is unanswerable, yet the name is not now to
be altered, and an investigation of the interior of these strange remains of primitive:
times would show that the title is not so unreasonable as it would seem at first
sight. The reddish earth and the really red pottery fragments of which they consist
extend often to a depth of eight feet, at which the original substratum of London clay
is reached, showing that the works are really mounds, though buried by the slow
sepulture of time. Close by many of them, an actual mound, some feet in height,
is often met with, the purport of which must remain a mystery until either public
or private munificence provides the necessary means for a thorough investigation
of the interior. Dotted about on the marsh lands of Essex these red-earth hills
are met with in no small number, and hundreds have been mapped out by the
energies of the late Mr. H. Stopes and Mr. W. H. Dalton, and later still more
completely by Dr. Laver, Mr. E. A. Fitch, and Mr. W. Cole, who have almost
exhausted inquiry for the purpose of locating all the examples of red-earth hills
that are known to exist in Essex."
The President, in the course of a few remarks, referred to the late Mr. Henry
Stopes' address at a meeting of the British Association, on "The Salting
Mounds of Essex" ; and Mr. W. Cole said that all that seemed to be known of
these mysterious mounds was contained in a contribution by the late Mr. Stopes
to the Essex Naturalist. Mr. Cole recounted various hypotheses which had
been put forward to account for their existence. One explanation was that they
were old salt works ; but that was discountenanced by their position inland ;
whilst another view, supported by the fact that they were always found above
high water mark, was that they were the sites of refuges made to protect cattle
against floods. Mr. Cole, however, favoured the hypothesis that they were the
sites of very early pottery kilns, for in them were found three or four kinds of
pottery, some of which appeared to be Romano-British. He had brought over
from the Essex Museum a selection of pottery which he had obtained in exploring
Red Hills at Burnham (in company with Mr. Fitch) and at East and West