i6i 



"ON THE PLEISTOCENE DEPOSITS OF THE 

 ILFORD AND WANSTEAD DISTRICT, ESSEX." 



IN 1899 I read a paper, before the Geologists' Association of 

 London,' on the Ilford and Wanstead district. Since the 

 reading of that paper, some further sections of the Pleistocene 

 deposits have been exposed at those places and since they are of 

 some interest they form part of the subject of the present paper. 

 In the paper above mentioned, I dealt with the subject under 

 two headings, viz., (i) High Terrace Drift and (2) Lower or 

 Middle Terrace Drift. 



A description of the large patch of High Terrace Drift which 

 occurs at Wanstead was given ; this description included details 

 of a remarkable section of contorted gravels which was exposed 

 early in 1898 at a pit to the north-west of Wanstead Park. The 

 importance of this section is obvious when it is mentioned that 

 the contorted drift was capped with genuine, in situ Pleistocene 

 gravel, which thus proved the antiquity of the disturbance. I 

 ascribed the disturbances to the grounding of river ice. 



Mention was made of the occurrence of Eqnus caballns in 

 the gravel here. The occurrence of seams of Manganese was also 

 noted and in connection with this I made many observations in 

 the Wanstead pit on the origin of the seams. My conclusions 

 were published in a paper in Science Gossip, "" in which it was 

 contended that the Manganese seams did not owe their origin to 

 filtration from the surface, but to fluviatile deposition contem- 

 poraneous with the deposition of the gravels. 



Further sections of the gravel in this pit have afforded me 

 many examples of contortion. Sometimes the seams of sand 

 and gravel are so twisted up as to resemble loose knots. 



One section is worthy of being given in detail here. 1 he 

 beds seen were as follows :— 



(i) Surface soil and made earth ... 2ft. 



(2) Gravel, with lenticular patches 

 of sand, one of which had its 

 top and bottom layers 

 cemented into 'iron-pan ' ... 4ft. 



I Martin A. C. Hinton.— " The Pleistocene Deposits of tiie Ilford and Wanstead 

 District," Proc. Geol. Assoc. Vol, xvi., part for Feb. 1900. 



2 Martin A. C, Hinton. — " Manganese in River Gravels, ' Science Gossip, vol. vi., N.S. 

 pp 146-147 



