26 i 
ON CERTAIN BOTANICAL AND GEOLOGICAL 
OBSERVATIONS MADE DURING THE OPEN¬ 
ING OF THE ROM ANO-BRITISH BARROW 
ON MERSEA ISLAND. 
By S. HAZZLEDINE WARREN, F.G.S. 
[Read 29 th November 1913 ] 
Being the Report on an Investigation undertaken by 
the iMorant Club, with a Contribution by Mr. G. M. Davies, 
F.G.S., and a Prefatory Note by the Hon. Secretaries of the 
Club. 
(1.) PREFATORY NOTE .—During the summer of 1912, 
the large Barrow (22 ft. 6 in. high and about no ft. in diameter) 
which stands prominently on the northern edge of the small 
central plateau of Mersea Island, about half-a-mile south¬ 
east of the Stroodway, was opened by this club, with the per¬ 
mission of the owner, Mr. Charles Brown, and under the personal 
superintendence of our member, Mr. Hazzledine Warren. 
The result was the discovery of a very interesting Romano- 
British Interment, apparently of the second half of the first 
centrury A.D., and evidently that of some person of great 
importance—probably a British Chieftain ruling under Roman 
suzerainty, rather than an actual Roman. 
The tomb consisted externally of a cist or chamber, sub¬ 
stantially constructed of Roman tiles, mortar, and boulders. 
This contained a leaden casket, about 13 in. square, within which 
was a beautiful globular urn, of sea-green glass, nearly thirteen 
inches in diameter, having a broad flat recurved rim. This 
glass urn held the incinerated remains of an adult. The con¬ 
tents of the tomb are now in the Colchester Museum. 
A full account of the results achieved from the archaeological 
point of view has been published already 1 . The present report 
deals only with certain incidental results which are of botanical 
and geological interest. These could not be included appro¬ 
priately in the archaeological report and are, therefore, now 
treated separately here. 
We wish to repeat our statement, made in the general report, 
1 Trans. Essex Archceol. Soc , n.s. vol. xiii., pp. 1x6-139 (1913). 
C. 
