258 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
The larvae of the Cinnabar Moth were found feeding on Ragwort in the
quarry.
When all the scattered members of the Party were gathered together
a short Meeting of the Club was held in the pit, with the President in the
Chair, when
Mrs. Janet E. F. Howard,
Mr. Bernard F. Howard, of Fairbank, Loughton, and
Mr. William E. Glegg, of The House, Albion Brewery, Whitechapel
Road, E.1,
were elected Members, and one candidate was nominated for election
at the next meeting.
Mr. Newton then gave a brief account of the mammalian remains
which have been found in such abundance in the Pleistocene deposits of
the Grays and other neighbourhoods, and Mr. Thompson added some
remarks on the physical geology of the district.
The President gave an account of the more noteworthy plants which
had been met with during the excursion.
Tea was taken in the town at 4.30, and the visitors returned to London
by the 5.35 o'clock train, after a very successful and enjoyable day.
FIELD MEETING IN THE DAGENHAM DISTRICT
(519th MEETING).
Saturday, 18th September, 1920.
In spite of continuous rain throughout the morning, which threatened
much personal discomfort, having regard to the rough nature of the ground
to be traversed, a faithful band of seventeen Members duly paraded at
Dagenham Dock station at 2.5 o'clock, as per the circular calling the
meeting. The object of the excursion was a botanical one, to investigate
a rampant tangle of phanerogamous plants growing upon waste ground
bordering the Thames River bank.
On leaving the station, the party skirted the large sheet of water known
as Dagenham "Gulf," or "Lake."
Dagenham Breach, the last and greatest of several inroads of the
Thames since the building of the river-wall, was occasioned on 17 December
1707, by the coincidence of an extremely high spring tide and a violent
N.E. wind, probably added to the neglect or ignorance of an unqualified
marsh-bailiff, one Edward Osborne, who was in charge of the river-wall.
Of small extent at first, but not attacked with adequate promptitude and
fore-sight, the breach in the wall, which might have been stopped, it has
been estimated, by the shrewd expenditure of £40, repeatedly re-opened,
notwithstanding various repairs, and was not finally stopped until 1721,
after the enactment of a special Act of Parliament and the outlay of scores
of thousands of pounds.
During the repeated inrush of water at high tides not only was tho
Breach constantly widened and deepened, but thousands of tons of marsh
soil, scoured out through the gap at ebb tides, formed mudbanks in the
river and seriously interfered with navigation. By the year 1716, it was
estimated that the drowned land occasioned by the Breach amounted to