142 NOTES.
deep well-sections, therefore, the presence of the Glacial Drift would
not have been known.
The places that have been mentioned range over a distance of
six miles. How much further the Drift-channel may go we know not,
neither can we say to what steepness the slope of the underground
chalk-surface may reach; the slopes given in each case are the
lowest possible.
A Suggestion for the Useful Employment of Wealth. —"The expense
of conducting [archaeological] explorations upon this system [that of careful
observation of all surrounding circumstances attending the discovery of remains,
and rigid accuracy in recording the most minute details] is considerable, but the
wealth available in this country for the purpose is still ample, if only it could be
turned into this channel. The number of country gentlemen of means, who are
at a loss for intelligent occupation beyond hunting and shooting must be consider-
able, and now that a paternal Government has made a present of their game to
their tenants, and bids fair to deprive them of the part that some of them have
hitherto taken, most advantageously to the public, in the management of local
affairs, it may not perhaps be one of the least useful results of these volumes if
they should be the means of directing attention to a new field of activity, for
which the owners of land are, beyond all others, favourably situated. It is
hardly necessary to insist upon the large amount of evidence of early times that
lies buried in the soil of nearly every large property, which is constantly being
destroyed through the operations of agriculture, and which scientific anthropo-
logists have seldom the opportunity or the means of examining. To render all
this evidence available for anthropological generalizations is well worth the
attention of owners of property, who may thus render great service to an im-
portant branch of science ; provided always that it is done properly ; for to meddle
with, and destroy antiquities without recording the results carefully, would be a
work as mischievous as the converse part of it would be useful."—General Pitt-
Rivers, F.R.S., in preface to volume ii of "Excavations in Cranborne Chase."
Minute Perforations in Ancient Pottery from Fryerning.—In February
last I had, with other members of the Club, an opportunity of examining the site at
Mill Green, near Fryerning, where Mr. Miller Christy discovered a quantity of
ancient pottery in 1879, as recorded by him in the "Transactions of the Essex
Archaeological Society (vol. ii, N. S. pp. 357-8). We found numerous fragments
of ancient pottery, some possibly of Roman manufacture, and other pieces of
apparently later date. Many fragments showed plainly the marks on the skin of
the potter's fingers, but we were much puzzled to find pieces of the rims and
handles of vessels pierced with minute holes, as though a knitting needle had been
thurst into the clay while it was yet soft. On reading volume ii. of General Pitt-
River's magnificent work "Excavations in Cranborne Chase, near Rushmore,"
I found that he had also noticed similar holes in pieces of pottery from the
Romano-British village at Rotherley, Wilts. He suggests that the holes may
have been made to allow of the vapours escaping during the cooling of the ware
after baking. He adds :—"My assistant, Mr. Reader, who was for some time
employed in the firm of Messrs. Doulton and Co., informs me that this practice of
stabbing terra-cotta panels before firing is often employed at the present time, and
is to enable the air bubbles during the burning to escape without bursting the
material. It is all the more likely that this is the use of the holes from the fact that
the pottery at the rims where these punctures occur, is thicker than the other parts."
The explanation here given seems to be a very probable one, but I shall be very
glad to hear from anyone who may have noticed similar perforations in rude early
pottery. Are they to be found in specimens of undoubted British make ?—William
Cole, Buckhurst Hill.