Journal of Proceedings. iii
Mr. Letchford, F.R.M.S., as one of the race of "pond-grubbers," said
he would be glad if the Society succeeded in stopping the system of deep-
drainage, but he was afraid the Conservators would say that they con-
sidered the Forest as a recreation-ground for the inhabitants of the eastern
parts of London.
The President thought that the position taken up by the Club repre-
sented the best interests of the inhabitants of London. He conid not see
the justice of giving the Forest over to the "inhabitants of Eastern
London," if by that phrase was meant the public-house frequenters.
There was quite room enough for all without in any degree spoiling the
Forest for the lover of Nature. He hoped they would be able to get
together such a large number of protests, and from such representative
bodies and individuals, as would convince the Conservators that there was
a large section of the public interested in the Forest from a purely Natural
History standpoint, and the feelings and wishes of such persons deserved
quite as much consideration as the supposed wishes of the unintelligent
and unreflecting public-house supporters. [Applause.]
Mr. A. P. Wire read the following:—
" Note on the Woolwich Beds at Leyton, Essex.
" In excavating recently for the new deep sewer in Union Lane, Leyton-
stone, the men cut across a bed of dark-coloured mud or clay, which the
most cursory examination showed to be full of fragments of shells. The
bed had evidently never before been disturbed by the hand of man, and
questions arose as to the position of this stratum in the geological system,
its name and origin, and the history of the broken fossils. The London
Basin is so well known to geologists that it was unlikely to be a new dis-
covery, although it might be such as far as the exact locality was con-
cerned.
" The mud is very loose, of a dark colour, and even if dried readily dis-
integrates when put into water. Small masses more or less indurated
were occasionally found, but its looseness gave great trouble to the work-
men by its continual subsidence and consequent sinking and breaking of
the drain-pipes.
" Careful washing of the mud on a fine sieve under a gentle current of
water revealed the fact that scarcely a whole shell could be found, and
that the fragmentary fossils were more numerous than anticipated. By
far the larger quantity of these are Cyrena cordata in all stages of
growth, from the tiny young, scarcely larger than a pin's-head, to the full-
grown adult an inch and a quarter across. This shell is a bivalve, but
very rarely were both valves found together or united. In one or two
specimens found whole, the animal mass had been transformed into a hard
black substance interspersed with spangles of native bisulphide of iron
(iron pyrites). Among the washings were found species of the genera
Planorbis, Hydrobia, Valvata, and some others. All these are fresh-water
shells. Among the finer washings the microscope did not reveal any
remains of smaller organised forms. The mud, when treated with nitric
acid and boiled, left a residue of fine sand. As far as observation goes no
pebbles larger than, or as large as, a pea exist in the mud, but a piece of
wood was found attached to a mass of broken Cyrenas. In endeavouring
to identify the stratum, and find its place in the geological system, a
consideration of the locality and its surroundings solved the difficulty.