xlii Journal of Proceedings.
after passing cordial votes of thanks to Mr. Parish, Mr. Beddington, and
Mr. Houston, a short drive took the party to the "New Inn" at Roydon,
where tea was served.
After tea an Ordinary Meeting of the Club (the 41st) was held, Mr.
B. Meldola, Vice-President, in the chair, at which the following were
elected members :—Rev. E. Gepp, M.A., Mrs. F. Grut, Mrs. Knott,
Madlle. Both, Messrs. C. F. Hayward, P.S.A., A. V. Jennings, E. Knott,
E. Kay-Robinson, Thomas Scarborough, and F. C. Timbrell.
Mr. Meldola then gave a brief sketch of the geology of the district
which had been traversed during the day. He remarked that it was
deficient in interest owing chiefly to the uniform character of the strata
and the almost entire absence of sections or exposures. By the kindness
of Mr. Rudler, F.G.S., of the Museum of Practical Geology, who had
very kindly sent Mr. Cole a MS. map containing hitherto unpublished
details of the surface geology, he had been enabled to follow out the
greater part of the day's ride on the Survey Map, and he found that for
the main portion of the time they had simply been travelling over
London Clay—that formation which really constituted the larger
portion of the county of Essex. Overspreading the London Clay were
patches here and there of Chalky Boulder-Clay, of which they saw a very
good exposure the previous Saturday in a field near Lambourne Church.
This Boulder-clay was interesting to geologists because it told of the
action of glaciers in past ages. Nearly the whole stretch of road between
the "Robin Hood" and the "Wake Arms" passed through the Bagshot
series which capped the higher hill tops of Essex, and extended into
Middlesex. From the "Wake Arms" onwards the ride had been on
London Clay, till, near Nazing, they came to a patch of post-glacial
gravel which he thought would well repay a very careful search for
palaeolithic remains. He thought that any person who undertook this
investigation would be sure to find them, for the gravel was in just about
the same position and at the same horizon as Mr. Worthington Smith's
"palaeolithic floor" on the south side of the Lea, and no doubt it
belonged to the same series of gravel. Just close to Roydon there
seemed to be also a patch of probably post-glacial gravel which would
repay investigation—a very small patch, about half a mile square.
Immediately outside this patch, and cropping up from beneath it, was
a thin band of Woolwich Beds—a series of pebbly beds often inter-
stratified with clays and sometimes even containing bands of peat, as
he had seen in the south of London, and oyster beds. These beds
underlie the London Clay and overlie the Thanet Sand, and it was
clear, from these facts, and from the chalk coming to the surface a
little further on, in Hertfordshire, that they were there at the northern
outcrop of the chalk of the London basin ; the Tertiaries were thinning
out, and they were beginning to see exposed the strata underlying the
London Clay.
While the horses were resting a stroll was taken in the village, the