492 W. H. Dalton — Subsidence in East Essex, 



on, and the " saltings," as the uninclosed land is termed, continually 

 widen seaward, fresh strips being inclosed frequently. 



Though the surface of the saltings, covered with coarse grass and 

 maritime plants, rises to the average level of high tides (owing partly 

 to the retention by the vegetation of drifted organic and inorganic 

 substances, and of silt suspended in the tidal waters), it is found 

 on inclosure and drainage to sink about six or seven feet below the 

 high- water level, the difference being due to the previous constant 

 saturation. 



These facts, coupled with the difficulty of ascertaining without 

 elaborate observation the mean level of a sea so subject as the North 

 Sea to be influenced by the set of the winds and the outline of the 

 coast, render it necessary to observe very great caution in collecting 

 evidence as to either elevation or subsidence within this area. 



Without committing myself to the expression of a positive opinion, 

 I wish to place on record certain facts and reports bearing on the- 

 subject which may be of use to future observers. 



A bed of peat, resting on freshwater shell marl, occurs in the bed 

 of the Orwell below Ipswich, 14 feet below low-water mark. (J. E. 

 Taylor, Brit. Assoc. 1875.) A submerged forest with stools of trees 

 in position of growth is said to occur in the Stour at Dovercourt. 



In the alluvium of the foreshore in front of the town of Walton- 

 on-the-Naze have been found fine specimens of Cervus megaceros, 

 and other extinct mammalia. The old Bath House Hotel was origin- 

 ally erected about 30 yards nearer to the sea ; its modern substitute 

 is now beaten by the spray at spring tides, and the road in front of it 

 occasionally flooded. This may be due either to a slipping seaward 

 of the alluvium down an inclined plane of London Clay, or to such 

 alteration of the slope as enables the water to run further up, or to 

 real subsidence. 



Between Clacton and St. Osyth, a submerged forest occurs on the 

 foreshore. A legend, current in the neighbourhood, attests the 

 former existence of a parish named Alton somewhere ofl" the present 

 coast-line thereabouts. A farm there is called Alton Park, but no 

 mention is made of Alton by Morant or other historians. It may 

 have been on a London Clay island or peninsula now destroyed. 

 The forest, with elm stools still in place, forms the foreshore 

 from beyond the lowest ebb-tide level up to a line of dunes which 

 protect a low cliff of London Clay. The sea is attacking and 

 removing the ancient soil, although deposition is going forward a 

 few miles further west. This forest is probably of about the same 

 age as the Walton alluvium, but on this point there is no positive 

 evidence from either physical or palysontological sources. The space 

 covered by it and the na.ture of the material (unctuous blue clay 

 full of twigs and pieces of wood) forbid the supposition that the tree- 

 stools have been let down from a higher level by the removal from 

 below them of incoherent beds — a process which in the Stour estuary 

 is depositing tree-stools in the position of growth on the alluvial flats 

 below high-water mark. 



The marsh land on the Eiver Oolne below Wyvenhoe is in some 



