96 THE COMING OF AGE OF
fifteen years ago. Possibly the renewal of this investigation may
be undertaken at some future period by the Club.
In the annual presidential address which I had the honour
of delivering on Jan. 27th, 1883 (Trans. III., 62), I ventured to
put forward the suggestion that we should undertake to prepare
a complete catalogue of the pre-historic remains of our County.
This suggestion was further elaborated and read at the South-
port meeting of the British Association the same year (Trans.
IV., 116), and our Hon. Secretary, Mr. Cole, commenced to
collect materials for such a catalogue. Owing to pressure of
other work but little progress has been made by the Club in this
matter, and in the meantime the Society of Antiquaries has set
the scheme practically going by inaugurating a system of regis-
tration of ancient remains on the existing Ordnance Maps
(Essex Naturalist, III., 91). The necessity for carrying out
systematic archaeological surveys of the Counties was quite
recently brought before us by Mr. C. H. Read, and that is why
I have ventured to refer to it again. The modern publication of
the Victoria County Histories has also been the means of emphasiz-
ing the necessity for archaeological surveys, and our own County
has been undertaken for this work by our Members, Messrs.
G. F. Beaumont and I. C. Gould, who have prepared two maps
registering respectively by means of symbols the remains of the
stone, bronze and iron ages, and the ancient earthworks, camps,
mounds, tumuli, &c. The Roman and later remains will also be
dealt with, but these do not come within our province. Large
numbers of the records entered by the authors above mentioned
are taken from our pages and these will serve as vouchers for
our utility in connection with pre-historic archaeology.
I have already referred to our indebtedness to Mr. Worthing-
ton Smith. We have had the benefit of his co-operation as
mycologist and archaeologist as well as in his capacity of artist
and engraver. The first of his series of papers on "Primaeval
Man in the Valley of the Lea" was read in 1882 and revised for
publication in 1883 (Trans. III., 102) and followed by three com-
munications on the same subject in i887 (Essex Naturalist, I.,
36, 83, 125). All these papers are profusely illustrated by the
author's own engravings of implements, &c. Other papers from
his pen, and also illustrated by his pencil, "On Neolithic and
Palaeolithic Scrapers, replaced and reworked" and on "Palaeo-