View report page

26
and newspapers; furniture makers, joiners and shopfitters; electric
welders and galvanisers and sheet metal workers; producers of
water softening and conditioning chemicals and horticultural
products; works for the manufacture of wireless, aero, vehicle and
typewriter accessories. Besides the usual electricity generating
stations and gas works, there are cement and stone works, cold
meat stores, coal wharves and the inevitable lighterage companies.
The numbers actually employed vary from a few hundred to
several thousands at the larger factories.
Recent efforts by the Government to encourage rationalisation
of industry and manufacturing processes throughout the country
have met with varying degrees of success. Locally, however, considerable
anxiety has grown and great concern expressed in the
Borough at the probable economic and social consequences of
severe staff reductions in, or the closure of, a number of large
industrial premises in the area. Elimination or contraction of firms
such as A.E.I., U.G B., Johnson & Phillips, S.E.G.B. (gas processing),
Stone-Wallwork, General Steam Navigation, etc., make
long term planning of industry and the establishment Of viable
residential areas in the Borough (as in the case of "Thamesmead")
hazardous undertakings.
SUPERFICIAL GEOLOGY
Geological formations occurring in the London Borough of
Greenwich are of two groups, namely, the "superficial deposits" and
the "solid formations". These are given below, seriatim, in descending
order and while this holds good for the area as a whole, the
complete sequence is not always met with for superficial deposits
may be non-existent, local arching of strata and subsequent denudation
of the higher parts may have brought to the surface lower
members of the succession and, in other cases, a stratum of the
sequence may be entirely absent. Where maximum and minimum
depths are stated, this implies a true variation of the thickness of the
beds in question and, with the exception of the superficial deposits,
is not to be ascribed to thinning due to erosion.
Superficial deposits in the Borough are distributed over the
surface of the "solid formations" and may be considered as being
of (a) "made" ground, (b) alluvium, and (c) gravel, the latter deposit
being of the Pleistocene or "drift"' series. At some places these
deposits fill deep hollows in the surface of the "solid" attaining a
maximum thickness of about 70 feet and at others are arranged as
banks. More usually they form spreads of comparatively uniform
thickness, or remain caps to the higher ground. Situated below these