262 THE KSSHX FIELD CEUB. 



the island and back again would be long and, in the absence of the shade 

 of trees, somewhat fatiguing, it was proposed to approach Canvey from the 

 Thames Estuary side and then to walk through to Benfleet. 



Accordingly an excellent sailing boat was engaged to convey the party (a 

 very small one) from Southend Pier to the island. The start was made at 

 about three o'clock, and as there was a fine fresh breeze, an exceedingly 

 enjoyable sail was obtained to the Chapman Sands, at Canvey. The party 

 was landed in a row boat, and then a ramble along the shore to Hole Haven 

 was taken. There is a Coast Guard Station here, and a somewhat celebrated 

 rustic inn, the "Lobster Smack," concerning which some stories of the old 

 smuggling days are current. This part of the Thames Estuary has been 

 frequently mentioned in hction. The marshes of Cliff and Cooling on the 

 Kentish shore are very graphically described in Dickens' Great Expectations. 

 Canvey Island and its neighbourhood figures largely in Mr. Coulson 

 Kerwahan's Captain Shannon, a.n<i in Mr. Kobert Buchanan's And) oiiicda, the 

 last-named work being a publication of the present year. 



The walk along the shore proved that with time to make a careful search 

 many interesting objects of natural history could be found. The commoner 

 species of mollusca were very much in evidence, and several somewhat 

 infrequent species of littoral plants were noticed. 



Mr. T. S. Holmes had intended to be present, but most unfortunately 

 failed to come up with the party in a walk across the island. He has, 

 however, furnished the following sketch of the geology of the district, which 

 he had intended to demonstrate at the meeting; — "If we glance at a 

 geological map of Canvey Island and the district within a radius of ten miles 

 around it, showing the drift or superficial beds as well as the older formations, 

 we see that Canvey Island consists solely of the latest of all, the alluvium of 

 the Thames, of which the adjacent marshes of Bowers, Pitsea, Vange' 

 Fobbing, and Corringham are also composed. If we then proceed to note the 

 distribution of the older deposits of the Thames in this district we see a 

 curious break in their continuity between Fobbing on the west, and Leigh 

 eastward, the river having, since their deposition, taken a northward turn from 

 Fobbing to Pitsea and thence eastward to Benfleet and Hadleigh, sweeping 

 away in its course its own older gravel and brickearth and leaving the more 

 recent alluvium of the marshes iu its place. North of Canvey Island we find 

 London Clay ; capped between Hadleigh and Rayleigh by beds of the Bagshot 

 Series, which are covered here and there, in their turn, by patches of gravel, 

 representing locally the Westleton beds of the late Sir Joseph Pre^twich. 

 The highest ground in the district is thus formed both between Hadleigh and 

 Rayleigh, and at Laindon Hills, a few miles to the west. The London Clay 

 attains a thickness at Rayleigh of 400 ft. On the Kentish shore at Cliffe the 

 Chalk forms a cliff some 300 or 400 ft. above the marsh, and may be seen on 

 the Essex side about East Tilbury at a slightly lower elevation. But a boring 

 at Thames Haven, in the marsh west of Canvey Island, gave a section, of 

 which that below is an abstract. (Whitaker : Geol. Land. Vol. 2 p 36.) 

 The boring is on the marsh, about 450 ft. from the river bank.' 



I See Trims Es^sex F. Club vol. iv. p. .64. 



