NOTES ON ESSEX GEOLOGY.
277
and it is suggested that we are "warned off this district (East
Anglia) for trials for coal, at all events until more favourable
evidence turn up." The reverse has happened so far.
1906.
The second edition of H. B. Woodward's Soils and Subsoils
is a work that should be in the hands of everybody who has
the faintest interest in the geology of the neighbourhood of
London, dealing as it does with so many matters of general
interest ; sites for houses, water-supply, drainage, cemeteries.
The various Geologic formations are described in groups accord-
ing to their general composition : Gravel and sand, Mixed Sub-
soils, Clay, Limestone, and on the map they are grouped under
Gravelly Series, Sandy Series and Clayey Series. This map
alone is worth the price of the Memoir.28 I leave you to appreci-
ate the work for yourselves.
1907.
M. A. C. Hinton figures a molar of the Alpine Vole (Microtus
nivalis) from the brickearth of Grays. The specimen was the
first found "as a former inhabitant of Britain."29 The species
is here recorded also from Kent and Somersetshire. But see
under 1910.
Vol. i, pt. ii of the Report of the Royal Commission on Coast
Erosion contains some references to Essex (besides a good many
of a general character), for which I am answerable, but I fear
that they add nothing to what was known before (Evidence pp.
114, 116, 117. Appendices p. 144). The latter was thought
worthy of reproduction in the Geological Magazine of 1909.
The Port of London and the Thames Barrage. A Series of
Expert Studies and Reports,30 though a book of a general character,
refers to Essex. The geological conditions in the Tidal River
are noticed, with a coloured geological map (from London to
the sea). C. Beadle goes into the question of possible infiltra-
tion from the river (if a barrage were made), discussing the geo-
logical characters of the bed of the river and of the bordering
marshes. The book should find a place in an Essex Library.
28 Mem. Geol. Survey, pp. vi., 82, coloured map. Price 1s. 6d.
29 Proc. Geol. Assoc., Vol. xx., pl. i., pp. 41, 45.
30 Pp. vi., 193. 4to., Lond., many plates.
H