40
THE SUBSIDENCE AT LEXDEN.
a charming and most picturesque excursion for a geological club.
The station should be Moreton, near Dorchester.
Note on the above.
Having been favoured by the Rev. Osmond Fisher with a sight of
his reply to my paper on the above subject in the Essex
Naturalist, the following brief remarks thereon occur to me :—A
landslip producing an effect, such as I suppose one produced at
Lexden, would obviously be of somewhat unusual character, and, if
we had there only some 20 or 30 ft. of gravel and sand above the
chalk, would certainly not have commended itself to me as the only
probable explanation ; but as at Lexden we have only 10 or 12 ft. of
gravel above 100 ft. or more of London Clay, the probability of the
landslip explanation is immensely increased by the insuperable
difficulties—as I think—attending any other. In the soft arable
ground cracks would soon disappear, while any protrusion of gravel
into the river at the bend would hardly receive special notice, as it
must have occurred before from time to time at the same spot under
ordinary circumstances, and if observed, would in all probability not
be connected with the appearance of the hole nearly 50 yards away.
Consequently, even if seen, it would not be retained in the memory
as an unusual phenomenon.
As regards the remarkable pits on Affpiddle Heath, Dorset, I may
observe that I visited them in 1882, after reading Mr. Fisher's
remarks on them in the "Quarterly Journal of the Geological
Society," but in their case we have not 100 ft. of impermeable London
Clay between the surface gravel and the chalk.—T. V. Holmes.
Hypochaeris glabra, Linn.—The Rev. W. R. Linton records this plant
("Journal of Botany," vol. xxiv., p. 376, December, 1886), as growing in a grass
field on sandy gravel at West Tilbury. This station is in "Vice-County 18. S.
Essex," of "Topographical Botany," and is a new record. —Ed.
Living Barometers.—The prevision which many animals have of coming
storms was well illustrated here on December 8th. I keep a loft of very intelligent
pigeons ("Antwerp Homers"), which are generally on the wing soon after day-
break. On this morning, however, nothing that I could do would tempt them
to leave their house ; whistling and food were equally unavailing, though usually
irresistible An hour and a half afterwards the most fearful hail storm we have
had for years burst over London and district, thus fully justifying their staying
within doors.—A. Lockyer, Woodford, December 15th, 1886.
Sparganium neglectum, Beeby, in Essex.—In "Journal of Botany,"
vol. xxiii., p. 26), Mr. W. H. Beeby distinguishes this form from S. ramosum,
Huds., principally by the characters of the fruit, "which is somewhat obovate-
acuminate, with a long beak, instead of, as in ramosum, obversely conical, with a
very truncate (or sometimes rounded) apex and short beak." Full details are
given in subsequent papers (see "Journal of Botany," vol. xxiii., p. 193, plate
258; vol. xxiv., p. 142). Mr. Beeby now records (loc. cit. vol. xxiv., December,
1886, p. 378), the occurrence of the plant, on the authority of the Rev. J. D. Gray, in
North Essex, commonly in ditches about Nayland. He had previously reported
the receipt of immature specimens of a Sparganium, probably referable to
S. neglectum, from South Essex ("Journal of Botany," xxiii. p. 194).—Ed. '