NOTES ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. I 55 



Further Notes on some Sections on the New Railway from 

 Romford to Upminster, and on the Relations of the Thames Valley 

 Beds to the Boulder Clay. — Our Vice-President, Mr. T. V. Holmes, read a 

 paper to tlie Geological S )ciety on April 25th, under the above title, being obser- 

 vations supplemental to his papers in THE EssE.X NATURALIST (vol. vii., pp. 1-14) 

 and " Quarterly Journal Geological Society." for Au'^ust, 1892. Mr. Holmes; 

 alludes to his discovery of Boulder Clay on the new rail\va\- at Hornchurch, dealt 

 with in his previous paper, and describes the finding of more Boulder Clay close 

 to Romford during the deepening and widening of a cutting there. The Boulder 

 Clay was on precisely the same level as that at Hornchurch, a mile and a-halt to 

 the south-east, and, like it, was covered by gravel belonging to the highest, and 

 presumably oldest, terrace of the Thames Valley system. A portion of the 

 siited-up channel of an ancient stream-course was also found in this Romford 

 cutting. Its relations to the Boulder Clay could not be seen, as ihej^ were not in 

 contact, but they were alike covered by the oldest gravel belonging to the Thames 

 Valley system. The author discusses the probable direction of the flow of this 

 stream-course, and the way in which it was sujierseded by the ancient 

 Thames. After noticing certain points brought forward during the discus- 

 sion of his former paper, he concludes with a criticism on the views to which Dr. 

 Hicks inclines in his pap^r on the sections in and near Endsleigh Street ("Quart. 

 Journ. Geol. Soc." vol. xlviii., 1892), as regards the age of those beds, asserting 

 that they are, in all probability, simpl)' River Drift of the Thames Valley S3^stem, 

 and consequently post-glacial, in the sense of being later in date than the Boulder 

 Clay of Essex and Middlesex. Mr. Holmes has promised a fuller account of his 

 observations for a future number of The Essex Naturalist. 



Mammoth Tusk near Chelmsford. — L'nder the heading " Mammoth 

 Horn," the " Essex Weekly News " of No\-. loth, 1893, announced thai the " men 

 in the employ of Mr. James Brown at his brickfield, near Lower Anchor Street, 

 recently foimd a portion of a mammoth horn lying on the top of the white 

 clay at a depth of between 12 and 14 feet. The portion of the horn measures 

 6 ft. 3 in. in length, and at one end is as large as a man's thigh." Mr. Brown 

 has kindly presented the specimen to our Museum. — En. 



John Brown, F.G.S., of Stanway. — 1 have recently been reading 



" Retrospections, Social and Archaeological," by the late Charles Roach Smith, 

 F.S.A. : and find the following note on the above geologist in vol. ii. p. 43, 

 being an extract from a letter written to him by Mr. Joseph Clarke, F.S.A. , of 

 Saffron Walden : — 



I " Mr. John Brown was apprenticed at Colchester to a mason. He chose to 



I work as a journeyman until he could see an opening for himself ; he told me it 

 was the happiest time of his life when he earned fourteen shillings a week and 

 spent it all. I know nothing of his struggles, if he had any ; or of his efforts to 

 commence for himself. I only knew him when he had retired with a competency, 

 his last work being the hospital at Colchester. He had then purchased an estate 



I at Stanway, three miles north of Colchester, as he told me, to please his wife. 



! He most hospitably received his scientific and other friends. He outlived three 

 wives and left no family. Like Hugh Miller, V:hose sou/>r7(/uet \va.s ' Old Red,' 



' from his bringing to light fossils in the old red sandstone, Mr. Brown also im- 

 bibed a taste for the study of geology from the occurrence of fossils in the 

 material he worked upon." — Copied by W. CROUCH, December 15th, 1893. 



