p. 289.

The position may be denoted thus: Anbury Camp, near Redbourn : 46 96/34, this indicating that the camp is 9'6 inches from the top, and 3'4 inches from the left hand margin of sheet 46 (old survey), or, on the actual ground, about 9 miles from the north and 34 from the west margin of the area represented in the map."

There are also to be noted other sepulchral monuments, cromlechs, eminences on which watch towers have stood, or from which signal fires shot their baleful lustre into the sky, stone circles and forts, round towers, rock dwellings and shelters, cairns, and fragmentary remains of settlements. All these, from the kitchen-midden of the remote past, to the battle ground of the middle age, are full of instruction and of interest to the student of questions affecting the country as the race. Many barrows have been destroyed with the best intentions. "It is not uncommon for a certain investigator, who is interested in history, to dig up one of these ancient structures and extract all the pottery. There may be other relics of great importance, skulls or bones of various animals, all of which are important in fixing the date of the barrow or the habits of the people, and these things are all lost. In like manner people who are searching for human remains only, are likely to overlook all the other things, such as works of arts and similar objects, which yield very valuable information." A Committee has been elected by the Council of the Anthropological Institute to draw up a series of directions to those who desire to explore barrows and other ancient remains. The Council would be extremely glad if any one desirous of exploring a barrow would communicate with the Committee of Aid. It consists of experts, and has no desire to obtrude itself unnecessarily. It is important also to mention that the Society of Antiquaries has undertaken an Archæological Survey of England. They enter not only the prehistoric, but the Roman and Saxon remains and earthworks. Each county would be accompanied by a list which would be classified under different heads and indexed, so as to show the discoveries which had been made. The road along which we should travel is, in this respect more than any others, definitely marked out for us. The Ordnance Survey furnishes a rough catalogue, and all the elements of position. It is not too much to expect that a correspondent-more or less skilled-could be found in every district or parish to undertake to classify the information obtainable respecting the monuments of the past within his limit, and to communicate such information to a Committee of the Club, who would sift it and prepare it for publication.

I venture to suggest that this work, including the provision of a Map similar to one published by the Kent Archæological Society is well within the scope of our constitution and our energies; and I look upon it as likely to come to fruition in the immediate future. It will cost money doubtless, but I indulge the hope that, in the course of the investigations, a gold mine will be somewhere discovered, to which the Treasurer may find access.

It was whispered to me the other day that our botanists and geologists felt that archæology received too great a share of attention in the proceedings of this Club. I should be unwilling to press forward any subject likely to cause, or to increase, any division in our councils or our energies, but I think I can assert that

this particular scheme would receive influential support from many, if not most, of our members; and further, that its execution need not necessarily interfere with the other legitimate interests and researches of a Naturalists' Field Club.

I must now draw to a conclusion, apologising for taking up so much of your time. I have said enough to show the wide field that exists for work and workers of every kind. Few people are aware of the stimulus which the British Association gives to investigation in these and kindred subjects, for I have given but a selection from the list just published by them of objects attracting the attention of different Committees and isolated observers, to whom grants are made from year to year, in sums varying from £5 to £500, to enable them to continue their researches. The total contributed depends upon the success of the annual gathering. In 1889 it was £1,417, last year, £799.

Many of these subjects naturally demand more time, thought, and sustained observation than any but professed scientists could give, and complicated instruments might also be necessary.

My object this morning has been to suggest certain matters which may fitly come within the compass of members of our Club.

What is particularly needed is a series of observations concerning the unceasing changes in the structure of our planet and its atmospheric envelope. All things about us are in a condition of unstable equilibrium. The earth, as of old, stands partly in, partly out of, the water. No day is exactly like the preceding; new elements and combinations of change and chance are introduced. At the close of the day no particle stands, in relation to its fellows, in exactly the same position as it did when the day dawned. The summer's sun, the winter's frost, yea, even the vernal air that fans the cheek of spring, all work a change, and tend to pulverise this outer crust which serves us for a home. The force of gravity is constantly in exercise. It clings to each particle of matter as its Fate, and tends to drag it down to the lowest attainable level. The weathering and denudation that go on in respect of the surface of the soil are more extensive than we wot of, and are unnoticed only because the change is uniform and constant. If photographic or other records could have been preserved from age to age of the contour of the mountain, or the line of a wave swept bay, how interesting would not the tale have been to those who now dwell in their neighbourhood? We want to do in the future what the past has, in a measure, failed to do for us, and perpetuate the fleeting record ere the forms vanish for ever.

I would plead for original work, if of a character never so humble. The tendency of the age, with its flood of popular scientific literature, is to turn out a race who read, but do not think-who are content to think the thoughts of others so that they are led captive by any theory, if only sufficiently plausible and novel. In nature, the parasite is not considered to be a strikingly noble animal; yet many individuals, even though they be extensive readers of popular scientific works, are not a whit better than parasites. The cure for this is the accurate observation and patient setting down of a series of facts, it may be within a very limited radius. What interest can be derived from a single wasp Sir J. Lubbock can tell us; what a feast of mind a despised earthworm can furnish Charles

Darwin teaches. A fernery or aquarium, yea, the very smallest of all God's creatures, would furnish us with a world far too wide to be conquered in a lifetime, and it could not fail to be that, with longing and persistent sight, we should find out some fact about such, altogether new to science, and capable perhaps of illustrating some subtle law of Nature's working in an obscure corner of her laboratory, and mayhap of furnishing a key whereby a new chapter in the mysterious book of our common mother might be deciphered; and, although the British Association may not immediately crown our labours with its approval, or universal science applaud, we may have the proud satisfaction of electing ourselves fellows of a new society, consisting only of one person, and that person, our noble self; and, in addition, of presenting ourselves, at our own expense, with the biggest gold medal of which anybody has ever heard.

Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 25th, 1891.

WHEN the programme drawn out by the President, the Rev. Sir George H. Cornewall, for a visit to his residence, Moccas Court, to Bredwardine and Monnington, for the fourth Field Meeting of this year, reached the members, its popularity soon became apparent, and was proved by the fact that no fewer than one-third of them accepted his invitation. Amongst the visitors must be mentioned the Rev. William Henry Purchas (co-editor with the Rev. Augustin Ley of The Flora of Herefordshire), and the Rev. Moyle Rogers, the great authority on the species of Rubus, of which we find in the 8th edition of The London Catalogue of British Plants no less than ninety-eight varieties.

Upon their arrival in Moccas Park the members were met by the Rev. Sir George Cornewall, who without delay directed them to his Church. Having explained the symbolical Tree of Life on the tympanum over the entrance door on the south side, he conducted them into the interior, where he read a paper explanatory of the more than usually interesting features of this Early Norman building, chiefly owing to its antiquity and uniformity of style, being perhaps older than that of Kilpeck, and free from the grotesque architectural designs executed on the latter Church. Another feature which makes it unique is the fact that it is constructed of Travertine* with the exception of the jambs, &c., of the windows and doors, and the decorative mouldings which are cut in the Old Red Sandstone of the county. The organ, the case of which is decorated by Kemp, situated at the west end of the Church, is blown by hydraulic power, the water supply of which has never failed, neither during the drought of 1886, nor the almost unprecedented winter of 1890-91. From the Church the President conducted the members through his garden lawn, in which were growing some handsome trees, notably Cryptomeria japonica, Occidental plane, Wellingtonia, Hemlock spruce, and the great Cedar of Lebanon, of which last the dimensions were taken four feet above the level of the ground, where the girth was found to be 16 ft. 1 in., being an increase of exactly 2 ft. during the last 17 years. A tablet fixed on the tree gives the girth as follows:

Fragments of Calcareous Tufa are met with in the following Herefordshire Churches: Aymestrey, Bredwardine, Humber, Letton, Lyonshall, Monkland, Much Dewchurch, Wigmore, and probably in several more Churches. Before the restoration of Wigmore Church about twenty years ago, the ancient chancel arch was built entirely of Tufa. It was removed, carted away and sold; some of the blocks were very massive. We have seen some of them now appropriated as rockwork in a garden.

Leaving the lawn by a bridge which overlooks the large fernery, containing numerous and rare specimens growing in a rockery formed principally of Travertine, the members reached the garden, where the cultivation of the most showy British wild plants, mixed with plants from Italy, Switzerland, and other more distant foreign parts, has been so successfully carried out during a long period of years under the horticultural taste and supervision of Sir George. It was somewhat surprising to find that a most healthy specimen in blossom of an Aralia, more generally cultivated in greenhouses, had survived even the inclemency of the almost unprecedented winter of 1890-1891. Amongst British wild plants were seen handsome plants of Inula Helenium, Dipsacus, Lythrum salicaria, Lysimachia vulgaris and nummularia, Thalictrum majus, Eryngium maritimum, and many others, including the very rare Asarum europaeum; interspersed were plants from all parts, amongst which should be mentioned Eryngium amethystinum, Smilax sarsaparilla, Canna, Gentians and Saxifrages from the Alps, Ranunculus aconitifolius, Polygonum cuspidatum, Potentilla fruticosa, Veratrum album, Rubus spectabilis, and the handsome digitated blackberry from America, with varieties of Spiræa, Tropæolum, Alchemilla conjuncta, Acæna Nova Zealandica, or Great Burr, so troublesome in the sheep's wool in New Zealand, and a host of other plants far too numerous to be here mentioned, unless we call attention to a well-grown, healthy plant of the true Holly Fern, and Water lilies with the Arrow-head growing in the tank in the inner enclosure. In the garden the botanists found a Rubus thyrsiflora.

Punctually at one o'clock the party arrived at The Court, where the President exhibited some specimens of rare British plants of the locality, which included Ranunculus lingua and Wahlenbergia hederacea, or, according to Sir Joseph Hooker, now called Campanula, both in flower. The visitors were entertained at luncheon by Lady Cornewall, and afterwards Sir George, having briefly conducted the business of the Club, read an explanatory paper upon the formation of Travertine, not only in this locality, but also in many other places on a far larger scale; adding that its process of growth, or formation by the deposition of carbonate of lime over vegetable growths, would be seen in Depple Wood, within a mile of Moccas Court. Time only permitted of too brief an expression of thanks to Sir George for his interesting paper, and to Lady Cornewall for her hospitality. Proceeding to Depple Wood after luncheon, the first curious and rare object which attracted attention was an ancient Sundial on the lawn, of which more will be said hereafter, and in the meadow close to the entrance into Depple Wood were gathered many specimens of the aforementioned Campanula hederacea, this being the only known locality in Herefordshire for this plant. In the wood many exposures of the Travertine were met with in the diminutive streams running down the slope of the hill into the Wye below, and it was astonishing to hear from Sir George of the rapidity of its growth, as he pointed out the masses accumulated since he had removed so much for the restoration of his Church.

Quitting Depple Wood, a route was taken by Cross End Farm to the Deer Park, passing thence round Lawn Pool (which, owing to the lower average of the rainfall during the last 12 months, was nearly dry), where Lysimachia vulgaris