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20, — The Heetfoedshiee BoiTRifE. 



By the President, John Evans, F.R.S., V.P.S.A., F.G.S., etc, 



[Read 8th June, 1876.] 



The paper wMcli I have been requested to read this evening is, 

 I am sorry to say, unwritten, for I have not had time to reduce 

 it to writing. It is on the Hertfordshire Bourne — one of those 

 intermittent rivers which are not unfrequent under certain con- 

 ditions. 



What is the meaning of the term "bourne"? It is identical, 

 I think, with the German "brunnen" and the Scotch "bum," a 

 brook. We find it also used as indicating a boundary, for brooks 

 very frequently form boundaries, especially between diilerent 

 counties ; and iu this instance, during a considerable part of its 

 coui'se, the Bourne forms the boundary between Hertfordshire and 

 Buckiughamshire. It is not "the bourne" mentioned by Shake- 

 speare, from which " no traveller returns ; " for I am happy to say 

 that I visited its source this morning and I am here this evening. 



I may, first of all, mention the spot where it flows into the 

 Bulboume, a better-known Hertfordshire river. It is at a small 

 hamlet called Bourne End, which lies about two miles to the south- 

 east of Berkhampstead, and year after year the travellers along the 

 high road from Watford to Tring may pass over the spot where its 

 course traverses the road, without having the slightest idea that a 

 moderately-sized brook occasionally flows there, and that, according 

 to tradition, a man was once drowned at the end of the usually 

 dry culvert which passes under the road. For this Bourne only 

 flows occasionally, at intervals in general of from three to seven 

 years. On the present occasion it is flowing with moderate force. 

 I did not gauge it ; but it is a sufficient stream to fill a culvert, 

 which is something like a foot in diameter, thi-ough which it runs 

 with moderate velocity. At the present time the stream rises about 

 three miles up the valley, iu the direction of Chesham. I found 

 its source about 70 yards north-east of the road going to Harratt's 

 End, and it has been flowing since about the end of April. The 

 last time I visited it, which was the last time it flowed, was in the 

 year 1873. At that time it rose at a spot nearly half a mile further 

 to the south-west, and was flowing in considerably greater volume. 

 Its source was midway between White Hill and Ashley Green. 

 That was in the month of February, so that on that occasion the 

 stream commenced flowing at a much earlier period than it did this 

 year. It has also flowed at different times during various previous 

 years, but unfortunately I find that I have no note of all the years 

 in which it flowed. In those days there was no Hertfordshire 

 Naturalists' Society to take notice of such phenomena. But I have 

 a note of my visit in March, 1853 — twenty-three years ago. At that 

 time the Bourne rose rather higher up the valley than it does 

 in the present year. Looking at the records of the rainfall and 

 the percolation, I think that the stream must have flowed in the 



