THE BEAUTIES OF EPPING FOREST IN DANGER. 
fcijj-u PPING FOREST is situated mainly on the low ridge 
d ^ iat ^ orms the watershed between the Lea and the 
5 Roding, widening out in parts into a level plateau, 
but with considerable natural fall over much, if not 
most, of its area. This upland is capped by patches of gravel of 
various geological age resting upon London clay, which latter 
formation is exposed in some of the flat parts and on the middle 
slopes of both river- valleys, the lower parts of their valleys not 
being within the Forest. Some parts of the Forest are conse- 
quently almost always dry at the surface, while on much of the 
level central plateau there are numerous stagnant pools and a 
considerable area of wet ground after rain, the water being held 
up by the clay. Natural rivulets with considerable current 
drain the slopes, having, in some cases, as between Great and 
Little Monk Wood, cut for themselves deep, steep-sided and 
picturesque valleys. The banks of these streams are always 
liable to be damaged by the feet of cattle, and their channels to 
become blocked by fallen leaves. These causes, and in a few 
cases almost certainly, the existence of surface-springs at the 
junction of overlying gravel with underlying clay, have in places 
produced permanent bogs, marked by a luxuriant growth of Marsh 
Pennywort ( Hydrocotyle ) and occasionally of Sphagnum. Such 
bogs are undoubtedly, retaining as they do a large amount of 
stagnant water in the sub-soil, detrimental to the soundness of 
neighbouring timber trees ; and they may, though I have not 
heard of any fatalities, be a source of danger to the cattle of 
commoners, or of that larger body of persons who, as Sir T. F. 
Buxton has pointed out, usurp common rights. Their total area, 
however, is so small, and that of any one of them so insignificant 
as to be no serious obstacle to any rational pedestrian. It is 
not necessary that sound timber should be growing over the 
whole area of the Forest ; and their presence gives diversity to 
the Forest scenery, and affords many objects of interest to the 
large numbers of naturalists who enjoy the Forest in an un- 
obtrusive and harmless manner. 
The wood of the forest is mainly hornbeam, as pollards and 
as coppice, with a good deal of beech, including in some areas 
large trees, birch, holly, as undergrowth, and scattered oaks in 
some parts. The beech is mostly on dry knolls ; but its copious 
root system requires a good water-supply, though not a stagnant 
one, in a porous and consequently warm subsoil. The birch is 
perhaps more accommodating, but grows mostly on level gravel 
areas. The holly is still less particular, flourishing on dry sand, 
under the shade of beech or even in a stiff and necessarily some- 
what cold loam. Fir-trees are neither indigenous to, character- 
istic of, or suitable to Epping Forest ; and, though there are a 
few Scotch firs near Fairmead, the spruce is perhaps the only 
