282 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
Investigation shows that to-day some twenty-two Essex
rivers have definite names of a sort—bogus or otherwise. Taking
them in order, beginning at the south-western corner of the
county and proceeding eastward right round its margin, we find
that (omitting mere creeks of the sea which are not rivers)
these rivers are:—
(1) The Thames, (12) The Can,
(2) The Lea, (13) The Wid,
(3) The Stort, (14) The Ter,
(4) The Ching, (15) The Pant or Blackwater,
(5) The Roding, (16) The Brain or Pod's
(6) The Bourne, Rom, or Brook,
Beam, (17) The Colne,
(7) The Ingrebourne, (18) The Roman River,
(8) The Mardyke, (19) The Stour,
(9) The Crouch, (20) The Cam,
(10) The Roch, Roach, or (21) The Bourne,
Broom-hills River, (22) The Slade,
(11) The Chelmer,
These names must next be considered, one by one, in the order
in which they appear above:—
(1)—The Thames (length about 250 miles, but about 35
miles only in or adjoining Essex) forms the entire southern
boundary of the county, but drains no part of it, except through
its tributaries, the Lea, the Roding, the Ingrebourne, and
several smaller streams. Its name, which is undoubtedly
ancient, comes from some Keltic or other pre-English root pro-
bably identical with that met with in the names of various
other English rivers, as the Thame (on which is the town of
Thame), in Oxfordshire, the Tame, in Cheshire, the Tame, in
Worcestershire, and, perhaps, the Tamar, in Devon. In the
earliest printed edition of Ptolemy's Cosmographia (Rome,
1478, but compiled about A.D. 150) its name appears as
"Iamisais estus," which is, doubtless, a misprint for "Tamesis
estuarius." In the Saxon Chronicle, written about 1025, the
Thames is mentioned many times, under such names as Taemse,
Temse, and Temes.
(2)—The Lea (length about 50 miles, but about 20 miles
only in or adjoining Essex) rises in Leagrave Marsh, in
Bedfordshire, whence it flows eastward through Hertfordshire