THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB. 279
Ordinary Meeting, Saturday, December 17th, 1887.
The Eighty-fourth Ordinary Meeting was held in the Public Hall, Loughton,
at seven o'clock, Mr. T. V. Holmes, President, in the chair.
Mr. James E. Lickfold was elected a member of the Club.
In accordance with Rules III. and VI., nominations of new members of Council
and Officers for 1888 were made as follows :—
The following members retired from the Council:—Messrs. W. Law Bros, J.
Hutchinson, A. Lockyer, and F. H. Varley; the two latter offering themselves for
re-election.
To fill the seats so rendered vacant, the following members were duly proposed
for election : —Messrs. C. Oldham, A. Lockyer, F. H. Varley and Walter Crouch
(Mr. Crouch had been nominated by the Council, in accordance with Rule VI.,
some months ago, to fill the seat vacated by Mr. Bros.) No other candidates
having been proposed, these gentlemen stand elected at the Annual Meeting to be
held on January 28th, 1888.
As Officers for 1888, the Council nominated the following members:—Presi-
dent, Mr. Edward A. Fitch, F.L.S., F.E.S. (Mayor of Maldon); Treasurer, Mr.
Thomas Royle, F.C.S.; Secretary, Mr. W. Cole; Assistant-Secretary, Mr. B. G.
Cole ; Librarian, Mr. A. P. Wire. No candidates were proposed for the offices
of Assistant-Librarians.
Mr. Walter Crouch was appointed Auditor on behalf of the Council, and Mr.
C. Ridley on behalf of the members.
Mr. E. A. Fitch exhibited fragments of some Cinerary Urns (British ?) found
about eighteen feet to the north of Baron's Lane, Purleigh, Essex, where ballast
is being dug out and burnt. The urns were all at one level, about eight feet from
the surface, and were on a slab of charred wood which could be traced for over
six feet of its length. The soil had apparently not been disturbed above the
deposit. The urns were all filled with calcined bones. Mr. Fitch called attention
to the well-finished hollow-bottoms of many of the specimens,
Mr. Fitch also exhibited a large specimen of a fossil Nautilus (N. centralis ?),
over nine inches in diameter, found in the railway tunnel under Spital Road,
Maldon, twenty-six feet below surface of highway, in the London Clay, which
there lies beneath fourteen to sixteen feet of drift.
Mr. Fitch also brought up a case of samples of borings from a new well in the
London Clay, in the yard of the Purleigh Station, on East Canney Farm, Cold
Norton, Essex, together with a section of the same, kindly lent to him by Mr. W.
T. Foxlee, engineer to the Great Eastern Railway Company. Particulars will be
given in a future number.
Dr. F. H. Davies communicated a note on the whale lately cast ashore at Til-
bury, Essex, together with several photographs of the animal taken by Mr. R. Hider
and Mr. J. G. Wingrove. Mr. Walter Crouch, F.Z.S, made some very interesting
remarks on the animal which he believed to be Rudolphi's whale (Balaenoptera
borealis), illustrated with drawings and specimen of the baleen. Mr. Crouch's
remarks will be printed in full in an early number of the Essex Naturalist.
Mr. F. W. Rudler, F.G.S. (Curator of the Museum of Practical Geology,
and Director of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain) then delivered,
in a very eloquent and instructive style, a lecture on "The London Clay,"
the lecture being illustrated with a large array of geological maps and "sections,''
and specimens of the various fossils and mineral constituents of the London