254
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
simply suggests some merely prehistoric or primitive domestic
purpose. And unless seen when quite fresh, the subsidence
caused by the collapse of an old subterranean storehouse would
suggest something of special interest as little as the sight of a
disused gravel or sand-pit.
I have, therefore, much pleasure in saying that we are
greatly indebted to Mr. Squier for so promptly sending informa-
tion about this most interesting Mucking subsidence. I have
scarcely any doubt that in this, and in the hollows in the adjacent
field, we have examples of those deneholes in sand mentioned by
Palin as found in Mucking Woods, and which have been
hitherto in this country almost entirely ignored, though recog-
nised as existing, and now in use over large areas in Europe and
Asia. Indeed, as I have already remarked, from the fact that
the deneholes of south-eastern England have been preserved only
when they end in the Chalk, simply because it is the only com-
paratively hard rock in those parts of Kent and Essex where
they abound, their connection with the Chalk, which is only local
and accidental, has been erroneously supposed to be essential.
This mistake is one which the evidence afforded at Mucking and
Billericay in Essex, and by Lammas and Caister in East
Norfolk, will decidedly tend to correct.
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.—REPORTS OF
MEETINGS.
SPRING RAMBLE IN EPPING FOREST AND 246th
ORDINARY MEETING.
Saturday, May 19TH, 1906.
It has become almost an annual custom to open the summer session of the
Club with a ramble in Epping Forest, and ou this day one of these pleasant
meetings was held. The assembling place was Theydon Green, and between 30
and 40 members attended. The route was through some of the most beautiful
parts of the woodlands, looking their best in a delicate livery of pale green
opening buds and white hawthorn blossoms.
The Conductors were Mr. S. A. Skan, of the Royal Herbarium, Kew ; Mr.
Miller Christy, President ; and the Hon. Secretaries. Mr. Skan gave several
extemporary demonstrations in the woods, his main text being the coming science
of "Ecology" or "Plant Relationships," which is rapidly assuming importance
because of its direct bearing ou agriculture, horticulture, and forestry. Mr. Skan
explained by means of fresh specimens from Kew, some most interesting examples
of the methods by which plants adapt themselves to varying conditions of
moisture, drought, shade, and sunshine, and the ways in which particular species