336 PLEISTOCENF GEOLOGY OF THE THAMES VALLEY, 



Nuts imbedded in a tree-trunk. — About the middle of December last, 

 some large elm trees were cut down in a field belonging to the late Mrs. 

 Mildred, at Chigwell. At the base of one of the trees, about 5 feet from the 

 ground, in the centre of a trunk 18 inches in diameter, was found a quantity 

 of nuts -the fruit of the Hazel They were most perfect, but on being 

 opened, the kernels were perished. There was no opening in the trunk or 

 any communication of any kind with the outside, so that these nuts may have 

 been deposited by a squirrel more than a ceutur\- ago. It appears from 

 several instances of the kind that trees quickly close up articles deposited in a 

 chink or hollow. . I exhibited a blade of a razor extracted from the heart of a 

 horn-beam in the Forest at the meeting of the Club on February 25th, 1899 

 (ante page 27). — S. Arthur Sewell, Buckhurst Hill, 



[Several occurrences of a similar kind are recorded in our publications. 

 In 1883 Mr, Edinger gave an account of the finding of a bird's nest with eggs 

 in it, enclosed in the wood of an elm tree (see Journal of Proceedings, E.F.C., 

 vol. iv., iii.), and Mr. C. E. Benham in 1894 recorded an example of inscribed 

 letters having been covered up for many years by the growth of the woody 

 tissue of an elm near Colchester. Essex Nat., vol. viii., p. 88. — Ed.] 



CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE PLEISTOCENE 

 GEOLOGY OF THE THAMES VALLEY. 

 I. THE GRAYS THURROCK AREA, 

 PART I. 



By MARTIN A. C. HINTON and A. S. KENNARD. 



WITH A SUB-SECTION ON THE FOSSIL FISHES. 



By E. T. NEWTON, F.R.S., F.G.S. 

 [Read October 2yth. 1900. 1 



/. INTRODUCTION. 



It is to be doubted if any geological period is of greater 

 interest than the Pleistocene, for it is the borderland of geology 

 and history. From the early days of geological enquiry to the 

 present time, it has attracted the attention of many of the ablest 

 intellects who have striven to unra\'el the tangled web of the 

 earth's past history. Dr. Buckland, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir 

 Joseph Prestwich, William Whitaker, Professor James Geikie, 

 the Woods, father and son, Alfred Tylor, John Brown, 

 F. W. Harmer and many others too numerous to mention 

 have endeavoured to read the secret hidden in the beds 

 often spoken of as the " Drift," and yet in spite of this 

 research there is no branch of science where there is greater 



