70
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
rapid. One of the oldest inhabitants states that he can remem-
ber when there was not a pine on the heath between the great
plantation of Pinus sylvestris and the railway line.
As this increase is the combined result of a number of causes,
it is necessary to survey briefly the salient points of the topo-
graphy, physical features, rainfall, and soil analysis relating
to that part of the Forest area which we propose to consider,
viz., that part which is enclosed by a line drawn from Loughton
to High Beach and the converging lines from these places that
meet at Epping.
As one looks eastward over the valley of the River Lea from
favourable ground in Middlesex and in Hertfordshire, or west-
ward across the Roding, the higher ground of Epping Forest
is seen as a prominent feature of the landscape dominating
the surrounding low country. Its elevation suggests a fresher,
purer atmosphere and a greater rainfall than that of the alluvial
country below. The high ground slopes much more steeply
towards the west than it does in the opposite direction. A
diagrammatic section east to west through High Beach exhibits
a slope of approximately 1.5 mile to the River Lea, and of 2.5
miles to the Roding. From the western side one sees, in the
spring, tier upon tier of leafy hornbeam and beech, and in the
autumn sunsets, the russet red glow of the latter mingled here
and there with the golden yellow of the birch and hornbeam.
The surface of the high ground includes a large portion,
not less than two-fifths, of the actual woodland of the Forest.
It attains at its greatest elevation a height slightly under 400
feet O.D., and forms a narrow irregular plateau with an average
width approximating to three-quarters of a mile. It extends
from High Beach (362 feet) to Jack's Hill (372 feet) onwards
to the highest point (385 feet), a few yards north of Ambresbury
Banks, the ancient camp, and thence to Bell Common (366 feet).
The plateau is not an unbroken level, as might be inferred
from the figures just quoted; it has been cut back by several
small streams that burst out at the junction of the London
Clay, approximately at the 300 feet contour, with either
overlying Bagshot beds, as at High Beach, or with the Pebble
Gravels. Where the uppermost layer of the London Clay is
sandy, the springs break out at a slightly lower level. A
former President, S. Hazzledine Warren, wrote in 1910, "Passing