one after another, bones of a Bos, but among them a tooth of Hyæna or tusk of Hippopotamus. In some instances it is clear that the ligaments had not decayed when the limbs subsided. Thus my son exhumed an entire set of associated bones of a hind limb of Bos primigenius.
What we have here, then, appears to have been a deposit in a deep hole of a stream, where it swept round against the south side of the hill. This stream was probably no other than the present one called the Rhee, and drained the same district then as now. This district is occupied by the Lower Chalk, the Gault, and the Boulder-clay; it contains none of the Upper Chalk within its area, nor any observed beds of flint-gravel. Accordingly we find the materials of the deposit to be such only as those rocks would supply, consisting as it does almost entirely of the debris of the Boulder-clay. That it is newer than the Boulder-clay is also shown by its lying beneath a hill which is capped by a thin tabular bed of that clay. There appear to be very few remnants of the Oolitic rocks among the pebbles, except a few fragments of Gryphæa. The pebbles are, for the most part, not at all decomposed, as those are which one now picks up in the neighbouring ploughed fields, and the glacial scratches are well preserved. This would lead to the inference that the river flowed between rather deep banks of Boulder-clay, abrading much at a depth beyond the reach of atmospheric influences.
Some peculiar circumstances must have caused so considerable an accumulation of bones. Probably the carcasses, inflated with the gases of decomposition, were detained here and there in the stream by quiet eddies, such as usually occupy deep holes in the elbows of a stream when the water is not in flood. The prevalent south-westerly winds would also assist in detaining any floating body in such situations[1].
Taking departure from the pit, and crossing the valley from north to south, towards Foxton railway-station, the levels give:—
From mammalian deposit to hedge, level |
77 |
From hedge to northern branch of stream, descent of 20 feet |
100 |
From northern branch of stream to middle do., level |
120 |
From middle stream to southern do., level |
134 |
From southern do. to a point about halfway between the angle of the road and Foxton station, rise of 20 feet |
220 |
651
At this point we are again upon the level of the mammalian deposit. There are at the present time two sections open in this interval where coprolites have been dug. One is in the level alluvial ground just south of the middle stream. Here a low-level fine river--
- ↑ There is a remarkable deposit of bones beneath the row of houses called "The Terrace" at Walton-on-the-Naze, in Essex. At this place the sea is encroaching on what was probably the eastern corner of a sheet of water occupying the same general position that "Walton Creek" now holds. The writer's opinion is, that the accumulation of carcasses at this place was caused by the south-west winds blowing nearly every thing that floated on the southern portion of this sheet of water to this particular part of its shore.
