A HISTORY OF ESSEX 



broad levels, and on those of Plaistow and East Ham, where the land is 

 comparatively cheap, the population has greatly increased despite the 

 naturally undesirable character of the situation. The Gas-Light and 

 Coke Company have created the village of Beckton, and other manu- 

 factories have attracted many workers. 



The marshland disappears for a space at Purfleet and again at Grays, 

 where the Thames in its windings almost touches the higher grounds of 

 valley gravel. At Tilbury Fort there is again a wide spread of Allu- 

 vium, to which attention has been specially directed because at the base 

 of the clays and peaty beds at a depth of a little over thirty feet there 

 was found a human skeleton of prehistoric, but not, as was originally 

 supposed, of palaeolithic age. The beds above included peat and tidal 

 clay, and the peat contained roots of birch and hazel, and remains of 

 reeds, ferns and mosses. Above the uppermost layer of peat were 

 evidences of Roman occupation. 1 



At Thames Haven and Canvey Island there is a broad tract of 

 marshland, consisting of fifty feet of clay, silt, sand and peat. 



Marshlands border east Essex at Wakering, including Foulness and 

 other islands, and northwards they extend along the Crouch valley below 

 Rettenden, and from Burnham to Bradwell on the borders of the river 

 Blackwater. On the opposite side Tollesbury Marsh is continued to the 

 spit known as Shingle Head Point. 



At the mouth of the Colne St. Osyth marsh extends towards Clacton- 

 on-Sea, where the peaty portion of the Alluvium, clay with plant- 

 remains, and stools and prostrate trunks of trees, exposed at low-tide, has 

 given rise to a submerged forest. On the south side the marshes are 

 bordered by a ridge of shingle and sand, ' which rises above the level 

 of the highest tides, and still continues to increase in width although 

 freely used for road-metal and ballast.' 2 



South-west of Clacton there are thin fringes of Blown Sand, and 

 there is a tiny patch at Stour Point between Walton-on-the-Naze and 

 Harwich. Harwich itself appears to be built partly on marine sand. 



These alluvial tracts comprise not only the old embanked areas below 

 high-water mark, including islands and other tracts of excellent loamy 

 soil adapted for grazing as well as arable ground, but they include also 

 salt marshes or saltings which rise ten feet and more above Ordnance 

 Datum. The spring tides cover these salt marshes, and by leaving thin 

 films of sediment, tend gradually to raise their level, until in the end the 

 sea may be excluded. As the saltings continually widen seaward, fresh 

 strips have been from time to time enclosed. 3 The trouble with all these 

 marshlands has been the want of fresh water in dry seasons, but deep 

 wells carried through the London Clay have provided a remedy. 



1 Holmes, Trans. Essex Field Club, vol. iv. (1885) ; Owen, Prof. Roy. Sue., vol. xxxvi. p. 136 ; and 

 Antiquity of Man as deduced from the Discovery of a Human Skeleton, etc., at Tilbury, 1884; see also 

 Spurrell, Proc. Geol. Assoc., vol. xi. p. 224. 



* W. H. Dalton, 'Geology of Colchester,' Geol. Survey, 1880, p. 11. 



8 W. H. Dalton, Geol. Mag., 1876, p. 492. 



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