THK CKKAT IKOST OF 1890-91. II7 



disturbances. The presence of Glacial gravel on the crest of the 

 Tijitree ridge points to its elevation during; the (ilacial period. 



I have referred to the possibility in the future of collieries being 

 worked in Essex, but, though the undulations I have endeavoured to 

 portray necessarily aflfect the subjacent beds, this is not a suitable 

 occasion to discuss the question of the constitution of the ancient 

 basis upon which the Secondary rocks of S.E. England repose. I 

 will only say here that I hold Mr. Godwin Austen's views on the sub- 

 ject to have been a priori untenable, and to have been disproved by 

 every successive boring that has reached the Paljeozoic rocks in 

 the south-east counties ; and that, but for the glamour of possible 

 wealth in concealed coal, his speculations would have received but 

 little notice. 



Few things can be clearer than that the Boulonnais and the 

 Warwickshire coal-fields, with their N.W. strike in common, are 

 better criteria foi the general trend of the older rocks under Essex 

 than the Somersetshire and Belgian coal-fields, which are so much 

 more remote. That Coal-Measures exist, with a N.W.-S.E. strike, 

 under a great part of eastern England I have held as certain for more 

 than a dozen years, whilst every now and then proofs have been dis- 

 covered of older rocks to the westward in Hertfordshire, Middlesex 

 and Surrey. Harwich, with its Carboniferous rock of uncertain 

 horizon, and Dover, with its unquestioned Coal-Measures, areas yet the 

 only Carboniferous localities — and they lie between the North France 

 and Midland English coal-fields. I hope to live to see many a 

 colliery at work in Essex, but it must be in regions outside of the 

 great depressions I have traced, for these may be due to the deep- 

 seated causes, carrying down the Coal-Measures as well as the upper 

 strata. 



THE GREAT FROST OF 1890-91. 



TN a paper read before the Royal Meteorological Society on February i8th, 

 -'- Mr. C. Harding gave some details of the late prolonged frost, which are 

 interesting as supplementing the papers of Dr. Thresh and Mr. French in the 

 last number of the Essex Naturalist. The paper dealt with the whole 

 period of the frost from November 25th to January 22nd, and it was shown that 

 over nearly the whole of the south-east of England the mean temperature for the 

 fifty-nine days was more than 2 deg. below freezing point, while at seaside 

 stations on the coast of Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire, the mean was only 32 de^^. 



