Journal of Proceedings. xxxi
Africa, into the rich valleys of the Thames country. And this they
actually did, the Mammoth and Rhinoceros coming from the east, and
the Hippopotamus and Southern Elephant from the south, there being
then no Straits of Gibraltar to bar their migration. Whole herds of
the great Pachyderms and Deer, which once lived in the wooded wilds
of Essex, had died and left no trace of their existence, their bones
being devoured by the Hyaenas, or gradually dissolved by exposure
and decay ; but the carcases of others had been swept into the rivers,
where—entombed in the sand and mud—they were safely preserved
for thousands of years; and now to-day, when these ancient
rivers have disappeared, and we dig down into their sandy
beds as we do this afternoon at Ilford, we find these wonder-
ful remains commemorating a vanished past. Another map shows
where may be found the physical memorials of the Mammoth period
in Essex—the Moraines of the Essex glaciers, as they may be seen to-
day up the hills at Epping, Theydon Bois, Havering, &c. Referring
to the Great Glacial Submergence and its traces in Essex, the speaker
quotes the important investigations of Mr. Searles Wood, who, he
assures us, has found on the Essex hills the old beach line of the
Glacial Sea at the time the chalky fossiliferous Boulder Clay at
Epping, and elsewhere, was deposited. At that time the sea occupied
the Thames Valley up to about the level of 150 feet at the part
opposite the Roding Valley, and about 180 feet at Cheshunt.
To the east of this the level falls, but to the west it rises, so that at
Stewkley, in Oxfordshire, it is nearly 400 feet, at Birmingham 500 feet,
and so on further west until in Wales a submergence of more than
r,6oo feet is reached.
Mr. Walker's remarks are listened to with great interest by us all,
standing around him in the pit, not to speak of the crowd of village
urchins, and the groups of more attentive navvies, who (neglectful of
their Saturday half-holiday) lean on shovel and pick, with their wives
and daughters from neighbouring cottages, to "hear tell" of the
fashion of the earth they delve in, and how
"Britain last, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main."
He concludes by a kind of apology to those who may hail from more
romantic scenery in England—from Derbyshire and Devonshire—for
the very unpicturesque country about Ilford, but humorously vindi-
cates the equality of the fiat river gravel district of the Thames, in
point of Palaeontological value and interest and geological romance,
with the country of Hyaena dens and limestone caves.
We then break out into the London Road to visit the pits in the
field formerly known as Curtis's, but now owned by a Mr. Judson. As
we stand on the precipice of untouched earth, and look down into the