Journal of Proceedings. cxxix
the Deneholes at Grays (see ante. p. cxxiii), and the meeting closed
with the usual conversazione, at which microscopes and specimens were
exhibited by Mr. C. Oldham, Mr. W. T. Christian and others.
Saturday, November 29th, 1884. Ordinary Meeting.
The fifty-third Ordinary Meeting was held in the Public Hall,
Loughton, at seven o'clock, the President in the chair.
The following were elected members:—Mrs. Holland, Rev. J.
Whitaker Maitland, M.A., Mrs. Royle, Messrs. H. H. Vaughan, W. H.
Vaughan, and Mrs. Vaughan.
Donations to the Library were announced, and thanks voted to the
donors.
Dr. Cory was chosen Auditor on behalf of the Council, and Mr. R.
Letchford on behalf of the Members.
Mr. Miller Christy exhibited a very decided case of fasciation in the
twig of an ash bush, which he had gathered last March, in a wood at
Hutton, near Brentwood, that had been cut down earlier in the previous
year. The twig was very much flattened, being about 11/2 inch broad at
the widest part, and about one-fourth inch thick. The President
remarked that such occurrences were not uncommon among the holly in
the Wokingham district on the Bagshot formation. It could also be
produced artificially by tying the young shoots together.
Mr. Spiller, F.C.S., exhibited three photographs taken by himself
during the Club's visit to Colchester in August last, showing the ruins
of St. Botolph's Priory, with the gap in the arch which was occasioned
by the earthquake. Also a photograph of the Castle Keep with the
members of the Club assembled therein, and a photograph of one of the
Deneholes in Hangman's Wood, taken by Mr. Arnold Spiller last year,
during the Club's visit to the Deneholes.
The Secretary exhibited, on behalf of Mr. George Biddell, of Orset, a
nice palaeolithic implement found among the gravel on the road near
Hangman's Wood. The Secretary remarked that only one instance had
been recorded of the finding of a palaeolith in that neighbourhood, viz.,
by Mr. Worthington Smith. Mr. Smith had, however, since informed
him that he had found palaeolithic flakes at Orset.
Mr. Christy exhibited the skins of five species of bats found in the
Deneholes in Hangman's Wood. [See ' Essex Naturalist,' vol. i., p. 259.]
The Secretary read, in the absence of the author, the following short
paper:—
A Hint on the Vitality of Seeds.
By Joseph Clarke, F.S.A.
A large sheet of water in front of our house here ("The Roos,"
Saffron Walden), has lately evaporated (owing to the exceptionally hot
summer weather), with the exception of a small puddle, and left the
accumulated mud quite dry. During the short time it has been so, the
i