16 ESSEX FIELD CLUB YEARBOOK, 1908.
suffice; for the scheme, when once started, would be supported to a
large extent by friends and members of the Club. The Council has
this matter under its consideration.
The Scientific Exploration of the many Ancient Earth-
works, Barrows, and other Pre-historic Remains with which our
County abounds, is another matter which the Club desires to under-
take, chiefly because such research can be carried out, as a rule, only
by an organised scientific body, and because, year by year, these inter-
esting remains are being obliterated or destroyed by the hand of the
builder, the farmer, and " Father Time." There are in Essex many
very remarkable
Camps and Fortifications, the age and uses of which can now be
guessed at only; but these, if carefully investigated, would yield
probably more-or-less conclusive information, as was the case in the
camps explored by the Club at Loughton and Epping (see p. 11)
Then, again, our
Deneholes richly deserve further systematic exploration; for the
investigations undertaken in 1887 (see p. 11), though they supplied
much new and valuable information as to the form and appearance of
these most remarkable excavations, left still unsolved many problems
concerning the precise age of the pits and the uses for which they were
intended by their makers.
The Red-hills round our coast have been for centuries almost
as great a puzzle to antiquaries as our Deneholes, and they have been
far less investigated. The Club's Committee which is now engaged
in exploring them as stated above, is doing excellent work and will
probably require to continue it for several years to come.
PRESS NOTICES OF THE CLUB'S WORK.
" It is scarcely surprising that residents of the County of Essex should appreciate the labour?-
of the Society, inasmuch as they are wholly devoted to the county, and are of interest to persons
who know little of Essex. In this respect—namely, the thorough examination of the district
lying at their doors—the members of the Essex Field Club set an example that similar Societies
elsewhere would do well to follow.....There are few Associations in the United
Kingdom which perform so adequately and thoroughly the proper functions of a local Field
Club or Naturalists' Society as the Essex Field Club."—Nature.
" The Essex Field Club has done a really good work in establishing the Epping Forest Free
Local Museum. The Museum has a distinct educational character, since it is designed and
arranged to illustrate the natural history, archaeology, and history of a most interesting district,
and the Lodge itself, with its antique staircase and upper banqueting room, is an antiquarian
object of rare value."—Daily News, November, 1895.
"That the Club has carried out the objects for which it was founded, and that it has more
than justified its existence, is made perfectly clear.....As regards publications, the
output has been not only large in quantity, but, what is more to the point, excellent in quality.
. . . . The Essex Field Club has earned the gratitude, not only of its own county, but
of the world of field naturalists generally, for the splendid example which it has set in showing
how such organisations can keep alive the spirit of Scientific Research in the rural districts.
There are few, if any, local societies in this country which can show such a good record. In
congratulating the Club on its past achievements, we feel sure that the wish that its future work
may be carried on with equal success will be cordially endorsed by all readers."—Nature,
19th October, 1905.