igS GREYWETHERS AT GRAYS THURROCK, ESSEX. 



Tertiary beds the softer portions of which have been removeci 

 by denudation from the places where these blocks are now seen^ 

 and as their distribution is extremely irregular, their occurrence,, 

 when seen, is well worth noting from a geological point of 

 view. 



But greywethers are not necessarily to be seen only on the 

 surface of a district. Mr. Whitaker remarks that they 

 "occur somewhat rarely in our River Gravel.""^ For the 

 changes in the courses of rivers occasionally involve the 

 imbedding in river deposits of blocks once some little distance 

 from the banks of the stream. At an excursion of the Geologists' 

 Association to the British Museum of Natural History on 

 March 15th, 1902 {Proc. Geo!. Assoc, vol. xvii., pp. 365-6) the- 

 members inspected a large Sarsen stone discovered in Thames- 

 Gravel w^hen the foundations of the Victoria and Albert Museurrt 

 were being excavated. It was presented to the N. H. Museum 

 by Colonel C. K. Bushe, F.G.S., a member of the Association^ 

 who saw it taken out. It is now in the Eastern Gardens of the 

 Museum. 



In the Geological Magazine for 1867 there is a very short paper 

 by ^the late Professor John Morris, once a much esteemed 

 honorary member of the Essex Field Club, " On the Occurrence 

 of Grey-Wethers at Grays, Essex." It occupies little more than 

 a page (pp. 63-4). He remarks that the occurrence of Sarsen 

 stones " has not, I believe, been generally noticed in this locality.'*" 

 The various chalk, &c., pits, when he wrote, had not been worked 

 so far back northward as they now are by a considerable 

 distance. He states that " the Sarsen stones (of which some may 

 be still seen lying about the large chalk pit) I have noticed 

 during the progress of the workings as occurring on the upper 

 surface of a bed of disturbed chalk, above the solid chalk, and 

 covered by a blackish, or carbonaceous clay containing fresh 

 water shells. They are of various sizes, some very large, and 

 more or less waterworn." 



He adds that the position of the Sarsen stones seen by him 

 was " about midway between the back of the present workings 

 and the entrance to the pit." The grey wethers were evidently 

 in old river deposits, though it is not now easy even to identify 

 the exact pit of which Prof. Morris writes. But as the spot 



2 Gtology of London and of part of the Thames Valley, vol. i., p. 330. 



