102 NOTES — ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 



rumbling. P.C. Batten, who was om duty near All Saints' Church, Springfield, 

 was very much afraid the meteor was descending directly upon him. 



October Rainfall at Chelmsford. — Mr. F. Chancellor has communicated 

 to the j)apers particulars of the rainfall in Chelmsford during the month of 

 October for the past twenty-five years. In October just elapsed Mr. Chancellor 

 registered 3"6o inches of rain, this being exactly the same amount which was 

 registered in 1875. The driest Ocotber experienced during the quarter of a 

 century was that of 1879, when only 0"73 inches was registered ; and tlie wettest 

 by far was October, 1880, when 6'26 inches of rain fell. In 1876 the register 

 marked O'gi inches, and in the other years it varied from I "97 to 4'i8. The 

 rainfall for last month was heavy at Chelmsford, though not so much rain fell 

 there as in other parts of the county. At Ramsey, near Harwich, 7'2i inches 

 was registered, while 5"I9 inches fell at Sudbury. 



Celtic Vases at Great Clacton. — In June last, as some workmen were 

 digging gravel on Mr. P. Smith's farm at Bull Hill, Great Clacton, they found 

 four vases about three feet from the surface. Unfortunatel}^ the workmen were 

 not aware of the value of their discovery, and took no pains to get the vessels up 

 without injury, or to save the pieces. Mr, Smith managed to save the least 

 injured, and has presented it to the Colchester Museum. No note was taken as 

 to their position or contents, but it appears to have been a Celtic burial of the 

 usual character. A large vase, accompanied by smaller drinking and food vessels, 

 was found, but there are no indications of a tulnulus. The vase sent to the 

 Museum is six inches high and four and a-half inches wide at the mouth, orna- 

 mented by numerous depressed rings formed by a twisted thong. The inside is 

 very smooth, and the fragments of flint in the composition of the paste are 

 rather smaller than usual. It is well burnt, and is of a red colour. 



Dutch Tobacco Pipes. — The queer little tobacco pipes (called " Dutch- 

 men '' by the country people) that one finds in excavations near sites of ancient 

 settlements and old banks in parts of Essex may be worthy of a passing note. 

 They are often found when repairing the sea-walls at Mersea and elsewhere, and 

 I have one dredged up from the estuary of the Blackwater. Mr. Bernard Smith 

 (" Notes and Queries," June, 1854) said of them : — " The pipes found in such 

 abundance in the bed of the Thames, and everywhere in and about London, I 

 believe to be of Dutch manufacture. They are identical with those Teniers and 

 Ostade put into the mouths of their boors, and have for the most part a small- 

 pointed heel, a well-defined milled ring around the lip, and bear no mark or name 

 of the maker. Such were the pipes used by the soldiers of the Parliament when- 

 ever they encamped." The late Mr. Charles Keene (of " Punch '') was very fond 

 of smoking out of these pipes, and some months ago Mr. H. Savile-Clarke gave 

 some interesting reminiscences of the Keene pipes in the " Pall Mall Gazette " : 

 — " When first I met Mr. Charles Keene, a good many years ago now, at the 

 studio of a friend in Danes Inn, he was smoking one of those curious little clay 

 pipes so familiar to all who knew him. We had some talk about it, and I under- 

 stood him to say that such pipes were the earliest made in this country, and that 

 they were often found when turning up any part of the foreshore of the Thames. 

 They have a very small box^l like a thin barrel, and a thick stem ; with a curious 

 little heel under the bowl, so that the pipe can be put down without spilling any 

 of the ash. The smallness of the bowl was, of course, due to the high price of 



tobacco in the days when these pipes were first used It may be 



noted that the bowls of these pipes are very thick, while the bore of the genuine 



