174
THE ESSEX NATURALIST
Referring to Salter's catalogue we found mention of other
isolated conglomerate blocks at Cripsey Brook (505067), Leaden
Roding (595135), and Mashbury Hall (652118). Plotted as a
straight line on the one-inch map, the Cripsey stone led on to
Fyfield ; the Leaden Roding stone was in line with Felsted ;
and the Mashbury stone was roughly in line with another men-
tioned by Salter, at White Notley.
We investigated these tracks in turn. The Cripsey stone was
immediately rejected, for we found that the bed of the Cripsey
Brook near Moreton was a prolific source of this stone, which is a
favourite material for local rockeries. The Leaden Roding track
was similarly abandoned, for the stone which in Salter's day stood
outside the Inn has long since disappeared, and it was apparently
placed there originally as a mounting block.
This left us with the Mashbury track. We adopted as a first
principle a critical approach to all evidence met with, accepting
no site or station without personal examination and cross-ques-
tioning of witnesses. Over the six months of this preliminary
enquiry we have sifted the testimony of more than two hundred
witnesses. We have adduced ample evidence of a track marked
out by a series of sighting stones all of conglomerate rock, an
astonishing number of which still exist in their original situations.
Other evidence, such as green roads and moated mounds, was
noted, but at no time have we rested our deductions on such
alone. There is strong presumptive evidence of this track stretch-
ing for eighty miles in a series of straight segments, making a
great arc from Hertfordshire, through Essex, Suffolk, and Nor-
folk to the Wash. We have convincingly plotted more than fifty
miles of it, and have followed with confident certainty more than
twenty miles. The pattern of the conglomerate track is so con-
firmed that we can anticipate where a stone will be found ; some
in our list have been discovered in this way. We are convinced
of the deliberate placing of these stones by human agency by our
experience that in spite of systematic search we have found
no similar stones anywhere else except such as can be traced
to natural sources such as the beds of rivers and natural
outcrops, and those which have been placed in position in living
memory.
The following is a detailed list of the markstones and
other phenomena found during this summer. The list is by
no means complete, for other items are constantly being dis-
covered.
National Grid reference numbers are given for purposes of
identification, and total distances are given in miles and furlongs
from the River Lea.