32
THE ELEPHANT-BED OF CLACTON-ON-SEA.
By S. HAZZLEDINE WARREN, F.G.S.
(With 2 Plates.)
(Read 26th January, 1924.)
EAST Anglia is rich in Pleistocene deposits of world-wide
renown, and among these the Elephas antiquus bed of
Clacton-on-Sea is worthy of a notable place. The credit of its
discovery is due to John Brown, of Stanway, and it was described
by him in 1838 in the Magazine of Natural History, n.s., vol. ii.,
p. 163. Later descriptions were given by Osmond Fisher and
by the Geological Survey.
During the years 1912 to 1916 I was fortunate in being able
to obtain large collections of the freshwater shells, the seeds of
plants, the bones of mammalia, prehistoric implements, and
other remains, and in securing the willing co-operation of a num-
ber of specialists. The technical results have recently been
published by the Geological Society.1
Geological deposits, in which so many different classes of
contemporary remains are found associated in abundance and
in good preservation, are always of particular importance,
and in this case the general Stratigraphical relations (indicating
the age relative to other known deposits) are also fairly clear.
On the north-eastern plateau of Essex one finds, at levels
of about 70 to 85 feet O.D., patches of river gravel with Chellean
implements. This gravel also contains abundant debris of Lower
Greensand chert from Kent. One can scarcely doubt that
these gravel patches are remnants of the Boyne, 100-foot, or
High Terrace, as it is variously called, of the main Thames-Medway
river.
This platform is trenched by tributary streams which now
flow directly into the sea. Within these secondary valleys there
are a number of elephant beds, of purely freshwater origin, but
now exposed between tide-marks on the sea shores at East
Mersea, Lion Point, Clacton, Walton, Mill Bay (Dovercourt)
and other places. We can trace these freshwater elephant-beds,
until they disappear from view below low tide level. This leads
us on to the elephant remains which are dredged from the bed
of the North Sea, not only near the coast, but as far out as the
1 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. lxxix., 1923, p. 606.