On the Rocks of the Essex Drift

Abstract

The rocks of the drift in Essex are of such great variety that it is very difficult to get a really representative collection; but I have selected some two hundred specimens out of a much larger number, and these, I think, may fairly be called representative, at any rate of the rocks in the western and north-western parts of Essex. Some of these are chips from large boulders, others are rolled pebbles. I have gathered them from the surface of the land within a radius of about four miles from Felstead, taking them chiefly from the open fields, the lanes, ditches, and bye-roads, and avoiding the main roads for obvious reasons, although no imported road-metal is used in the immediate neighbourhood. A considerable number have been taken out of the Boulder-clay, and some few from the gravel-beds which underlie it. The village of Felstead stands upon high ground overlooking the valley of the Chelmer, about six miles to the north-west of Braintree and just off the highroad between Braintree and Dunmow. The general appearance of this part of Essex is that of a tableland which has been carved out into valleys, with gently sloping rounded hills. On the slopes of these hills there are at all levels, even to the very tops, beds of loamy gravel, alternating with a considerable thickness of stiff yellow loam in some parts, and in others with chalky Boulderclay, patches of which lie on the tops of the hills and along the upper slopes, sometimes