f.KOLOGISTS ASSOCIATION IN ESSEX. 97 



road and the stream west of Butts Green displayed more or less London Clay at 

 the base over the greater part of its length. The cuttings between the stream 

 just mentioned and Romford were too little advanced at the date of the excursion 

 to be worth visiting, and they are but little more developed now (April 23rd). 



A full account of the Upminster and Hornchurch cuttings, by the present 

 writer, and more especiall}^ of that containing the Boulder Clay, will appear in 

 the Quart. Jotim. Geol. Soc. for August. T. V. HOLMES. 



WALTHAMSTOW. 



On May 7th Mr. J. Walter Gregory, F.G.S., conducted a party to some 

 cuttings at Walthamstow, on the new railway now being constructed between 

 Forest Gate and Tottenham. Alighting at St. James' Street station on the 

 Chingford Branch, the visitors proceeded to a cutting about half a mile east of 

 the reservoirs of the East London Waterworks, and a few yards S.E. of the Royal 

 Standard public-house, which stands at the junction of Ferry Lane with Black 

 Horse Lane. East of Black Horse Lane, and on the northern side of the houses 

 known as Stonydown and Stonydown Cottage, an excellent section appeared, 

 disclosing an irregularly channelled surface of London Clay covered by old river- 

 gravel, which here and there attained a thickness of 10 to 12 feet. The con- 

 tinuity of this gravel was slightly interrupted in one or two places by the existence 

 of narrow necks of London Clay, which presented a somewhat squeezed-up 

 appearance between the gravel on each side. Some hollows in the gravels itself, 

 which looked, a short distance away, as though they might be the result of 

 contemporaneous erosion, turned out, on nearer inspection, to be the sites of 

 shallow gravel-pits, which, after the removal of the gravel, had been filled up 

 with earth and rubbish. 



Leaving this excavation, and proceeding in a south-easterly direction, a walk 

 of about a mile brought the party to another cutting on the same line. When 

 the railway is completed these two cuttings will form but one, though at present 

 there is about three-quarters of a mile of ground between them still to be ex- 

 cavated. The position of this second cutting was found to be a few yards south 

 of Grosvenor House, a mansion on the southern side of Hoe Street, and it ranged 

 in a north-westerly and south-easterly diiection, its course being nearly parallel 

 with that of the street just named. The sections seen consisted of old river 

 gravel and loam, the subjacent London Clay not being visible. Between the 

 grounds of Grosvenor House and the Lea Bridge Road the cutting disappears) 

 and the line w'ill cross that road on arches on the southern side of the Bakers' 

 Almshouses. In fact, the only cutting will be the long one at Walthamstow, tlie 

 line east of Grosvenor House ceasing to afford any geological information beyond 

 what may be attainable from diggings for the foundation of bridges, etc. 



The gravel seen at Walthamstow appears to belong rather to the Lea than to 

 the Thames. The height of its surface above Ordnance Datum is from 40 feet to 

 a little above 50 feet, the greatest altitude being at the Grosvenor House end. 

 It is thus of lower level and more recent date than that on the course of the line 

 between Upminster and Romford. T. V. HOLMES. 



