80 (hi the Origin and Distribution of the British Flora. 



' Encyclopaedia Britannica ' affords hardly any information 

 on the natural features of the county, and the drainage is 

 barely alluded to in Mr. Gibson's ' Flora of Essex.' 



I propose to divide the county into seven Sub -Provinces, 

 viz. : 1, the Lea and Stort; 2, the Roding ; 3, the Crouch ; 4, 

 the Black-water; 6, the Colne ; 6, the Stour ; 7, the Brook. Of 

 these the first two come within Province (A), that of the 

 Thames and its tributaries. From the direction of its mouth 

 and delta- deposits it seems that, were the sea-bed elevated, 

 the Crouch, with its tributary the Eoach, wonld unite with 

 the Blackwater rather than with the Thames. I therefore 

 class it in Province (B) East Anglia. The Eiver Lea rises in 

 the Chiltern Hills in Bedfordshke ; flows south-east through 

 Herts, the eastern two-thirds of which is drained by it and its 

 tributaries, of which the Maran and the Beame are each 

 about eleven miles in length. It then flows south to the 

 Essex boundary near Roydon, where it receives the waters of 

 the Stort, separates us from Herts down to a little below 

 Waltham Cross, and then from Middlesex down to its outfall 

 into the Thames at Bow Creek. Its total course is about fifty 

 miles ; but I have no information as to the acreage drained 

 by it and its tributaries in Essex. The Stort rises within the 

 Essex boundary between Little Chishall and Langley Mills, 

 reaches the boundary between Stanstead Mountfitchet and 

 Birchanger, and forms the boundary for the greater part of 

 the remainder of its course to Roydon, receiving at Stanstead 

 a stream (name?) from Chickuey, giving its name to Bishop's 

 Stortford, receiving the Pincey brook from Hatfield Forest 

 near Harlow, and a Hertfordshire stream from the neighbour- 

 hood of Sawbridgeworth above Burnt Mill Station. Its total 

 course is nineteen miles. Below Roydon the Lea receives the 

 Cobbin River from between North Weald and Nasing, and 

 from Middlesex Salmon's Brook from Enfield Chase and 

 other streams from Hadley, East Barnet, Finchley, and 

 Southgate, from Highgate and Hornsey (at Tottenham), and 

 formerly the Hackney Brook at Old Ford. The Roding rises 

 at Brook End near Easton, flows south by many villages to 

 which it gives a name to Chipping Ongar, receiving a tributary 



