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THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
meant, in some largely-forgotten language or languages, merely
"the river," "the stream," "the brook," "the water," or
some equivalent thereto. On the other hand, most ordinary
place-names—usually double-element names—assumed approxi-
mately their present forms (in Essex, at any rate) during the
much-later Anglo-Saxon period, the language of which is well
known, so that their derivations are, as a rule, fairly obvious.
The river-names of the County of Essex have never been
made the subject of careful study. Of late years, however,
I have given them attention, and the following remarks are
the outcome. But, before setting forth the results arrived
at, a few general observations on our rivers themselves, their
courses, and their special features will be in place; for these
matters have a bearing on their names.
The rivers of Essex are peculiar in several respects. In
the first place, they are extremely numerous and of very-varied
sizes, from countless tiny rivulets to that most lordly of English
rivers, the Thames. In the second place, five of the more
important (namely, the Roding, the Chelmer, the Pant, or
Blackwater, the Colne, and the Cam) all rise within an extremely-
small area lying near the north-western extremity of the county.
This tiny area, scarcely 25 square miles in extent—that
is, less than one-fiftieth of the whole of Essex—does not include
the actual highest point in the county (namely a spot, 453 ft.,
in Langley); but it is, nevertheless, the most elevated area of
equal extent in the county, averaging about 350 feet. It is,
in its own small way, a very notable water-shed; for the five
rivers rising within it, with their tributaries and several small
streamlets rising within their basins, drain approximately four-
fifths of the entire county. Owing to the general inclination
of the surface of the county, all the rivers rising within this
tiny water-shed, with one exception (the Cam), flow in a more-
or-less south-easterly direction to the sea. This is, indeed,
the case with all our Essex rivers, wherever they rise, with the
one exception named. Thus, a few (as the Lea, the Stort, the
Ingrebourne, and the Mardyke) flow due south into the Thames;
a few others (as the Thames, the Crouch, the Roch, and the
Stour) flow due east into the North Sea; whilst the majority,
lying between the foregoing (as the Chelmer, the Pant, the
Blackwater, and the Colne, with their tributaries), flow south-