THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB. 87 



"Our knowledge of Essex Geology, due chiefly to the 

 labours of Prestwich, Searles V. Wood, jun., Prof. W. Boyd 

 Dawkins and Mr. Whitaker, has been augmented by the workers 

 of the Essex Field Club and of the Geologists' Association, and 

 notably by Mr. T. V. Holmes." 



We were fortunate at a very early stage in our career to 

 have secured Mr. Holmes as a member and later as President ; 

 Mr. Whitaker was among our first Hon. Members, and the late 

 Mr. Searles V. Wood has been a contributor to our publications. 

 The first original observation in geology published by the Club 

 was by Mr. W. H. Dalton in [88i on the Blackwater Valley 

 {Trans. II., 15) in which he made known as the result of a borino- 

 for an Artesian well at Tiptree Heath the apparent existence of 

 a faulted undulation in the underlying chalk, which subject was 

 further developed in a later paper by Mr. Dalton in 1890, 

 entitled " The Undulations of the Chalk in Essex " and accom- 

 panied by a valuable map. In this paper the author dealt 

 incidentally with the question of the existence of coal under Essex 

 (Essex Naturalist, V., 113). Among the early geoloo-ical 

 publications of the Club reference may be made to Mr. N. F. 

 Robarts' " Notes on the London Clay and Bagshot Beds at 

 Oakhill Quarry, Epping Forest" {Ivans. III., 231) and Mr. 

 Searles V. Wood's paper " On the Sand-pit at High Ono-ar " 

 {Ibid, IV., 76) to which is appended a note by that author 

 relating to Mr. Dalton's paper on the Tiptree Heath boring and 

 suggesting instead of a faulted undulation a simple sinuosity in 

 the fold of the underlying chalk {Ibid., p. 85). 



The deep geology of our County can of course only be 

 studied by means of borings, and here again we have been fortu- 

 nate in securing the co-operation of that most distinguished of 

 all authorities on the geology of the London Basin, Mr. Whitaker 

 who has kept an ever watchful eye on the well-sections, some 

 326 of which he has recorded in a series of four papers published 

 by the Club between 1885 and 1895 {Trans. IV., 149; Essex 

 Naturalist, HI., 4^ ; VI., 47; IX., 167). Mr. Whitaker 

 informs me that since his last communication he has records of 

 some six dozen other Essex well-sections ready for publication. 

 The part taken by the Essex P^ield Club in developin^^ 

 the geological knowledge of this part of the country is 

 also well brought out by Mr. Whitaker in his annual 



