222 THE ESSEX .NATURALIST. 
with two other small patches near by, on the north and south. 
All these are duly noticed in the Geological Survey Memoir, “‘ The 
Geology of London.” etc., vol. 1., p. 279 (1889). 
It is clear, therefore, that on the higher parts of these hills 
we must have the uppermost and usually more sandy part of 
the London Clay, which of late years has been separated by 
geologists under the name of Claygate Beds, from a village in 
Surrey where they are well developed. It may seem strange 
to take a name compounded of clay for a set of beds divided 
from a great clay-formation on account of their more sandy charac- 
ter, but I fear that geologists have never been noted for their 
adherence to truth in matters of nomenclature. 
It seems likely, then, that it may be owing to the presence of 
the somewhat sandy Claygate Beds that water has found its way 
downward from the surface, through the top part of the hill- 
range, until it has reached the more clayey beds beneath. When 
the Geological Survey extends its new work into S.E. Essex we 
shall have direct evidence on this question ; meanwhile we may 
have to be content with surmise. 
By one of those curious coincidences which happen pretty 
often, whilst the Essex Field Club was examining water that 
may originate in the Claygate Beds (on May 12, 1923) the 
Geologists’ Association was disporting itself at Claygate. 
Where the great quantity of the various salts in the water 
come from, or how they may have been evolved in these beds, 
is a question difficult to answer, and I leave it alone. Sulphate 
of lime, of course, occurs in all clays. 
It is notable that the fields around the wells are of small 
agricultural value ; they are now in pasture, with a good deal 
of scrub in the form of briar-bushes ; perhaps, therefore, roses 
might be grown here. Can it be that the alkaline contents of 
the loam and sandy clay are antagonistic to vegetation ? 
There are other mineral waters in the neighbourhood, and 
we may note one over two miles to the north-east, of the water 
of which we have an analysis. This is at Luncies, in the parish 
of Vange, about ? of a mile north-westward of Pitsea Church. 
I went there with Dr. Bullough, who kindly got for me the 
analysis of the water, and we saw two wells, said to be about 20 
and about 80 feet deep, the latter in the yard just west of the 
house, from which the sample analysed was taken. 
