4
London. They will shortly undergo careful examination, comparison,
and classification, the result of which must be reported upon hereafter.
Another very important department of your Committee's work was
kindly undertaken by Mr. W. H. Dalton, F.G.S. This was the accurate
mapping of the Red-hills—a class of work in which Mr. Dalton has had
much experience, owing to his former connection with the Geological
Survey and his having compiled, some years ago, in conjunction with the
late Mr. Henry Stopes, a rough map of Red-hills, which was published in
the Essex Naturalist (vol. i, p. 203). Mr. Dalton devoted some three
weeks to the work of accurately mapping the sites of all the known
Red-hills in the Langenhoe, Wigborough, and Mersea district. During
the coming summer, he hopes to deal similarly with those in the
neighbourhood of Tollesbury. It is hoped that other members of your
Committee will undertake other districts.
Your Committee is also much indebted to Colonel O. E. Ruck, who
has gathered at the Public Record Office, the British Museum, and else-
where, a number of old records tending to throw light on the origin of
the Red-hills and other mounds of similar nature. These will undoubtedly
prove of much value.
The payment of the wages of the men employed to dig, the securing of
lodgings for Mr. Reader, and various incidental expenses, have almost
exhausted the funds placed at the disposal of your Committee, as will be
seen from the statement of Receipts and Expenditure annexed.
Yet much work requires to be done before it will be possible to say
that the Red-hills of the Essex coast—to say nothing of others elsewhere
—have been adequately examined. At the present stage, your Committee
feels itself unable to endorse any one of the various theories which have
been advanced to explain the origin and uses of the Red-hills, deeming
that none of those theories agree with all the known facts.
Thus far, your Committee has confined its attention to a single district
only ; and, even there, many mounds which promise valuable results
still await examination. It is even more important that work should be
undertaken in other districts, where probably new features may present
themselves, throwing light on the problem to be solved. There
is, for example, at East Tilbury, a mound which, though it does not