WINTER SESSION, 1912-13.

The first Winter Meeting of the Field Club was held in the Reading Room of the County Museum, Dorchester, on Tuesday, 10th December, 1912. The President (Mr. Nelson M. Richardson) took the chair at 12.30, and among those present were the Hon. Secretary and the Hon. Treasurer.

Three candidates for membership were elected by ballot, and four nominations were announced.

Sir DANIEL MORRIS, K.C.M.G., read his report as the Club's delegate to the British Association meetings at Dundee in September last.

The Conference of delegates of Corresponding Societies was held under the Chairmanship of Professor F. O. Bower, F.R.S., of Glasgow, who delivered an opening address on the work of the great botanist, Sir Joseph Hooker, G.C.S.I., F.R.S., who was also distinguished as a traveller and geographer, an administrator, a scientific systematist, and a philosophical biologist.

The official list showed seventy representatives of affiliated societies and nineteen representatives of associated bodies.

The following were among the subjects discussed at the Conference. (a) The results obtained by the British Mycological Society on certain Fungoid Pests, by Miss A. Lorrain Smith, F.L.S.

(b) A preliminary report on the Selborne Society's Committee for the State Protection of Wild Plants, by Mr. A. R. Horwood.

(c) The Brent Valley Bird Sanctuary: An Experiment. Plant Protection (with lantern illustrations), by Mr. Wilfred Mark Webb, F.L.S.

(d) Water Power and Industrial Development in connection with the Highland Lochs, by Mr. Alexander Newlands.

Proposals relating to the Protection of Animals were touched upon by Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, F.R.S., in his address as President of Section D (Zoology) and in respect of the Protection of Plants it received the support of Section K (Botany).

At the Conference on the second day (Sept. 10th) a resolution was proposed by Mr. G. C. Druce, F.L.S., seconded by Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., and carried, “That this meeting cordially approves of the objects of the Society recently established for the purpose of obtaining areas containing interesting specimens of fauna and flora, and also objects of geological interest." In an address by, the Hon. N. C. Rothschild

on Nature Reserves," he announced that a Society for the promotion of reserves was in course of formation and would shortly issue its prospectus. This was regarded as giving promise of effective practical

measures.

Mr. E. A. FRY, who had been the Club's delegate at the Congress of Archæological Societies in London in June last, had forwarded his notes upon the subjects which were then discussed. (A print of the report was already in the hands of the Members.) The HoN. SECRETARY read Mr. Fry's observations, which more particularly referred to (1) the indexes of archæological papers, the utility of which merited a larger demand by the affiliated societies; (2) the inclusion of Ecclesiastical buildings within the scope of the Ancient Monuments Act, a proposal which was adopted by the Congress; and (3) the continued destruction or mutilation of earthworks.

Captain ACLAND remarked that the Golf Club at Came were said to have caused damage to barrows on the links; but he had been recently assured that only once had a small mound been cut, and that such a thing would not be done again.

The PRESIDENT moved a resolution to elect Mr. Henry Symonds as Hon. Editor. The proposal was seconded by Colonel MAINWARING, supported by the HON. SECRETARY, and approved by the Members.

The PRESIDENT then announced that Mr. H. Stilwell, who had edited the Dorset rainfall reports for many years, desired to relinquish the office, and he asked the meeting to accord a hearty vote of thanks to Mr. Stilwell for his work in that field of science. A resolution inviting Mr. Stevenson Henshaw, C.E., of Portland, to undertake the duties was proposed and adopted, at the suggestion of Mr. STILWELL.

The following gifts had been received, of which the PRESIDENT made due acknowledgment :-Mr. E. A. Fry, some documents to be added to the collection already presented by him; Mr. Forsyth, a case of beetles; Mr. Wingfield Digby, two oak logs.

EXHIBITS.

By Mr. HENRY SYMONDS, (1) an original letter of marque issued in 1803 to the East Indiaman United Kingdom; (2) a cast from a half-crown of the Civil War period, showing "SA" on the obverse, which letters had caused the coin to be attributed to a mint at Sarum. As the general type was very similar to that of the Weymouth half-crowns of 1643-4 the exhibitor believed that it was struck at Sandsfoot Castle during the siege.

By Mr. E. A. RAWLENCE, a stone corn pounder and a stone fire-kindling pot (?) recently found near Sherborne Castle.

By the HON. SECRETARY, an original copy of a "Sermon preached at the Anniversary Meeting of the Dorchester Gentlemen in the Church of St. Mary-le-Bow, Dec. 1, 1691, by Tho: Lindesay A.M." (The author was a native of Blandford, and became Archbishop of Armagh.) See Proceedings, Vol. XXXII., pp. xxix., xxxii.

By Mr. C. G. H. DICKER, two "greybeard " jugs dug up in his garden at Upwey in October, 1912. The PRESIDENT had prepared the following note in connection with these vessels.

The two very similar jugs found by Mr. Dicker buried a very short distance below the surface, probably date from the 17th century. They are generally known as Bellarmines or greybeards, from the fact that the face below the spout was taken to represent Cardinal Bellarmine, who in the latter half of the 16th century was unpopular as one of the strongest opponents to the Reformation, but the decoration of a face under the spout of a jug dates from a much earlier period. The material of the jugs is a stoneware, glazed with salt at a very high temperature, and is very hard and impervious. The manufacture of this ware in its more finished and refined forms was carried on at many places in Germany and the Low Countries from the early part of the 16th century, but coarser stoneware articles had been made there for a long period. In the 16th and 17th centuries, and later, articles of many different shapes were made, often decorated with raised coats of arms, lettering, and various ornaments. The jugs like the Upwey examples were made at more than one factory, but that at Frechen near Cologne seems to have been their chief source. Immense numbers of them were used in the inns of Germany and Flanders as beer bottles, and they were also very largely imported into England

for the same purpose, so that most of those found in this country are probably of German origin. But it is likely that they were also made in England, perhaps in various places, though the only distinct piece of evidence of this is the finding of a few, together with other pots, in a walled-up room at Fulham, where one of the most distinguished of English potters, John Dwight, worked in the latter part of the 17th century. Other more artistic productions of Dwight's are known, and these beer jugs were, from the circumstances, almost undoubtedly made by him, though they are so like some of the foreign ones, that had it not been for the fortunate find alluded to above, there would have been nothing by which they could have been distinguished with certainty. It is now impossible to say whether such jugs as the present ones were made here or abroad, though the probabilities point to the latter. The only undoubted one of Dwight's Bellarmines that I have seen (in the British Museum) is smoother in surface and not so mottled as these, but some of the jugs found in England are much more richly mottled, and have the dark patches much larger. The concentric rings on the bottom of these jugs are caused by the clay being cut through with a wire, as grocers cut cheese. I doubt whether it is known how the jugs were corked; perhaps with wooden plugs. Though these beer jugs or bottles must 200 years ago have been in use in countless numbers, and though they do not look as if they would easily be destroyed, yet now they are not often met with, and it is fortunate that these have fallen into the hands of one like Mr. Dicker, who appreciates their antiquarian interest, and will take every care of them.

'PAPERS.

1. Dr. H. COLLEY MARCH, F.S.A., read a paper on ScandoGothic Art in Wessex, suggested by the Sculptured Stones recently discovered at Whitcombe," which is printed and illustrated in this volume.

2. Mr. E. A. RAWLENCE described the circumstances attending the find of two buried oaks at Butterwick in Blackmore Vale, and exhibited photographs and plans of the sites. The geological questions involved were discussed in some notes kindly sent by Dr. W. T. ORD, F.G.S.

The dry summer of 1911 led to the discovery of this long-buried timber in the bed of the stream running from Holnest to Buckshaw, near to the point where it joins the stream from Glanvilles Wootton. The Holnest river having become quite dry, the deposits of gravel were being used for road purposes, and in the course of these operations the first oak tree was found under the bed of the stream. This log,

16ft. by 2ft. at the butt, was lying in gravel, with 4ft. 3in. of alluvial clay and lft. of solid blue clay over the butt. Underneath the tree was found a roe deer's antler. The second oak was in a similar position in the gravel about fifty yards up stream, but the tree had fallen in the reverse direction, viz., towards the north. Its dimensions were 20ft. 6in. by 2ft. 6in., and the clays above it were of practically the same thickness as those covering the earlier find. Remants of broken limbs of the second oak were lying near, and a pointed oak pile was found driven into the river bed below the level of the log, but not connected with it. In each case the head of the tree lay 3ft. under the clay of the banks. The wood of both logs was in excellent condition, the colour approximating to that of Irish bog oak. Dr. Ord, in the course of his notes, remarked that the points of interest raised by these discoveries were (a) the age of deposition of the gravel beds in which the logs occurred, (b) whether the deposit was in its original position, or had been washed down from higher beds of an earlier period, (c) the period to which the pile should be assigned. He thought there could be little doubt that the gravel was laid down by the stream, probably at a time when the natural drainage system of the country was much the same as at present, the period of such river deposits usually corresponding with the Neolithic age of human occupation. The existing water shed of the district south of Sherborne suggested that the material in which the logs were found came from the chalk hills to the south-west; from these hills there would be a fall of about 600ft. to the Oxford clay through which the stream flowed, in less than 3 miles.

3. Mr. HEYWOOD SUMNER, F.S.A., contributed a paper on the Earthworks of Cranborne Chase, illustrated by many plans which he had drawn. The paper is printed in this volume.

4. A paper bv Mr. F. J. POPE, F.R.Hist.S., on Dorset Assizes in the Seventeenth Century, could not be read owing to the lateness of the hour, but the communication will be found on a subsequent page.