known as Ambresbury Banks, Epping Forest. 59
which was hare of trees, and which afforded a good section
of the earthwork, and the cutting was commenced on May
30th, 1881. (See 'Journal of Proceedings.') The excavation
occupied about nine working days, and was carefully executed
by four or five men in the employ of Mr. Cuthbert, contractor,
Loughton. The section was 12 feet wide, extending from
the foot of the silting of the interior slope to about 13
feet beyond the counterscarp ; it included the removal of the
rampart within those bounds down to the old surface line
and the excavation of all the silting of the ditch, as well as
the small outer rampart beyond the ditch, which at this
place is only very slightly marked. The excavations were
very carefully watched in relays by members of the Club
during the nine days that the work lasted, including the
President (Mr. Meldola), Mr. W. Cole (Hon. Secretary),
Mr. W. D'Oyley (Hon. Surveyor), Mr. H. A. Cole, Mr. Alfred
Lockyer, Mr. H. J. Barnes, Mr. N. F. Robarts, Mr. T.
Fisher Unwin, Mr. W. Hodge, the Rev. Linton Wilson,
Mr. F. H. Varley, and myself.
As it has been thought advisable by the Club that the
programme which I drew up for the guidance of the directors
of the excavations—being the result of previous diggings,
and therefore possibly of use to future explorers—should be
recorded, it is here inserted, together with the imaginary
section accompanying it:—
" Let a, b, o, l, Fig. 1, Plate IV., be the original shape of
the rampart; and l, d, e, f the original shape of the ditch.
Then by denudation in the course of ages the outline will
have assumed the line, g, m, n, i, w, the amount of denudation
depending of course on the nature of the soil, the time, and
various other causes. You will not have the advantage of a
chalk soil in which the lines of demarcation of the different
deposits are much more clearly defined than in most soils,
and therefore you will have to look out sharply for them. In
the references to the section I have named the different parts
which are important in describing the positions in which the
relics are found, as the evidence of date entirely depends
upon that. A trench should be commenced well behind the