THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
89
I will take in the first place the question of how the Essex Field Club stands
with respect to meteorological work as compared with similar bodies throughout
the country, and I must say, and I say it with great regret as I have the high
privilege of being one of your Honorary Members, that you have yet your spurs
to win in that way. Up to the present time the Essex Field Club has not
done what I venture to think it ought to have done in meteorological work.1
But this is very soon mended, for it is excessively easy to put yourselves in a
very different position from that which you hold at the present time as regards
meteorology. Perhaps the most practical thing will be to comply with the
tendency of this world, which is to go after things we can see the result of at
once; and in meteorology that will be the rainfall, on which our water supply
wholly depends ; because, of course, every spring is only rain-water which has
percolated and risen up again. With respect to that branch, a good deal has
been done in Essex of late years by Mr. Radford Sharpe, who is a member
of this club. Mr. Sharpe some time ago began to collect returns from the
observers who are scattered over the county ; and he printed them in some of
the Essex newspapers. Unfortunately, the pressure upon his time has been such
that he has had to drop the work, and I think it most desirable that the Club
should take up that which he did as an individual. I do not think that work of
this sort should be laid upon the Secretary of the Club, but I hope that among
the members someone will volunteer—someone who is familiar with figures, and
who is not afraid of decimals—and prevent this work falling on the shoulders of
the Secretary. There is one little thing I have got ready for this evening
because I thought that probably someone would propose to help us, and
the first thing as regards help is to know the districts from which it is most
required. I am afraid that this map is somewhat too small, but what I am
holding up before me is a map of Essex—the county with which you have to do.
Those red spots that you see are the places at which, at the present time
observations are being made, and the few blue ones outside are simply to indi-
cate how far the neighbouring counties are provided for just where they come
into contact with the boundaries of Essex. Now, that is a fairly general
distribution, but there are one or two districts that I could name where
observers are very much wanted ; for instance, they are needed round Thaxted,
Raleigh, and Chipping Ongar. Rainfall observations are extremely easy to make,
but the great thing one desires with respect to them is continuity. Unfortunately,
persons change houses, or they die, or get married ; all sorts of things come in and
upset the arrangement. Observations may have been going on very well indeed
when something happens, and away go the observers. In one of the Welsh counties
the observers in two years ran down from eighteen to four, the other fourteen
having gone away from one cause or another. And, therefore, though this map
shows that Essex is at the present moment fairly well represented, I cannot
1 It may be pleaded in defence of the conduct or misconduct of the Essex Field Club in this
connection, that the default has not arisen from any want of appreciation of the interest or value
of such records when kept within due bounds, but from the difficulty experienced in obtaining
the assistance of a competent person to condense and tabulate the material sent in by observers.
We may be permitted to say, as the result of pretty extensive reading of the publications of local
societies, that meteorological records are apt to run rampant if care be not taken to compress
and digest the data obtained. The observations from a very few stations, if printed in
the customary manner, would suffice to fill the pages of the Essex Naturalist to the exclusion
of all other subjects. But we can truthfully assert that the Council and Editor would welcome
heartily any carefully considered scheme for the systematic and persistent registration of the
rainfall in Essex, and other meteorological data of interest. We hope to be in a position
shortly to announce that such a scheme has been agreed upon ; in the meantime we ask for the
co-operation of our members in the proposed work.—Ed.