part 4] ELEPBAS-AXTlQUUS USD 01? CLA.CT0X-0X-SEA. (509 



sections of the cliff as seen by them in 1868 and 1875 respec- 

 tively. These differ slightly the one from the other, and both 

 leave something to be desired in clearing up all points of detail ; 

 but, from them and from what I have been able to see mj^self 

 from time to time, it is perfectly clear that the elephant-bed 

 occupies a channel which was cut through the Holland Gravel 

 (bed C in fig. 1, p. 610), although it may not be separated from it 

 by any long interval of time. This channel exceeded 50 feet in 

 depth, and had a very steep bank on the eastern side, like a channel 

 quickly cut and quickly filled before the sides had time to break 

 down. The late Clement Reid, without being acquainted with the 

 locality, was able to reach the conclusion that the flora indicated a 

 small stream flowing between dry-soil gravel-banks, and yielding 

 no indication of the proximity of the sea. 



The Holland Brook rises near Manningtree, and has a course of 

 about 10 miles. Its valley lies to the north of the site here 

 described. On the other side the River Colne is much larger, and 

 has a longer course through Halstead and Colchester. The Clacton 

 stream was quite a minor tributary, which flowed into one or other 

 of these valleys (probably the Colne), or even directly into the 

 main river, and merely cut a temporary channel without widening 

 out into a valley. 



Grood partial exposures of different parts of the elephant-bed of 

 the foreshore were seen from time to time between the years 1912 

 and 1916, and a plan was kept of their position : from this I have 

 pieced together a fairly complete succession, but it was never all 

 seen at one time. The basement-bed, which rests upon the London 

 Clay, sweeps across the beach in a wide curve, Avith a diameter of 

 nearly 1500 feet under the parade-wall. This, of course, is a section 

 across the old river-bed ; and the basement-bed disappears far 

 beneath low- water at the deepest part. I have collected from 

 bed y b}* - digging under water at low tide, and the remains that 

 came up still proved to be exclusively freshwater. 1 



My own observations have been mainly concentrated upon the 

 elephant-bed of the foreshore, while the more detailed stratigraph- 

 ical sections previously published have dealt mostly with the 

 cliff-section, now much obscured. 



The best published section of the Clacton bed by J. Brown, of 

 Stan way, is in the Magazine of Natural History for 1840 (p. 199) ; 

 while (as I have already stated) a manuscript copy of the same 

 section is preserved in the Saffron Walden Museum. The latter 

 adds the thicknesses of the beds as then exposed. Variants of 

 the same section have been published by Richard Owen, 3 Osmond 

 Fisher, and in the Geological Survey Memoir; but these do not 

 add to the information, and most of them introduce errors of their 

 own. Putting together the information derived from the two best 

 sections enumerated above, we have : — 



1 These collections are marked y* in the accompanying Appendices. 

 - • History of British Fossil Mammals & Birds ' 1846, pp. 381-82. 



