12 The Presidential Address.
task, certainly reflects great credit upon our Secretary.
Nevertheless I must call your attention to the fact that
we are already seriously in arrear in the printing both of
Papers and of Proceedings, and that this is a difficulty
that will surely increase rapidly in the future, unless a
special effort is made to overtake it.
The ordinary work of our meetings, both here and in the
field, has gone on much as usual; we have heard many
papers and discussions of interest, and have had large
attendances at several very pleasant rambles; but I hope
during the present year that our Secretaries may be kindly
relieved of some of the work connected with the organization
of field meetings by local residents, who will, I hope,
volunteer their services as directors.
Perhaps one of the most satisfactory proofs of our vitality
is the many new lines of research that we feel constrained to
take upon ourselves. Having followed up our investigation
of Ambresbury Banks by that of the Loughton Camp, we
have now undertaken the exploration of the mysterious
Deneholes of the county; and, endeavouring to carry out
that supreme object of local societies, the cataloguing of local
objects, at the suggestion of my eminent predecessor Mr.
Meldola, who I may say has worked as hard for us, as a Vice-
President, as he did when President, we have also undertaken
a catalogue of all the Prehistoric remains in the county.
In concluding this introductory portion of my Address, I
wish to take the opportunity of making an appeal of a some-
what personal character. With the kind consent of Mrs.
Gibson, I propose at once to take in hand the preparation of
a new edition of the 'Flora of Essex,' and I hope that all of
you who can will kindly afford me your aid in the work by
communicating to me suggestions, notes, lists or specimens.
I propose to present all the type-specimens to the Club
herbarium.
For the special subject of my address this evening I have
chosen a subject related, on the one hand, to those researches
into the earliest history of man in Britain that are, I believe,
of interest to many of us, and on the other to the science of
Botany, my own chief line of study. This is—