NOTES — ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 367 



thirteen stations provide evidence of little change, since ten record no alteration 

 — a result no doubt of the artilicial protections. 



" A gain is reported from Walton-on-the-Naze following the lengthening of 

 the pier, and a loss from near Harwich Harbour, where the sea-wall is broken in, 

 with local slips at CUicton at unguarded spots. Every station is protected, 

 usually with sea-walls ; while Harwich, Walton, Clacton, and the eastern side of 

 Alersea Island are provided with groynes. Shingle is removed in small quantities 

 from Harwich, Clacton, Colne Point, and from the southern side of the Black- 

 water River." 



A map, showing the changes all round the British Coast, 

 accompanies the original report. — F. W. Rudler, F.G.S. 



Post-Glacial Deposits of Walton Naze. — The inter- 

 esting extract, given by Mr. Holmes on pp. 295-6, goes far to 

 support the suggestion which I tentatively advanced in i88g 

 (Essex Nat., vol. liii., pp. 223-241) as to the possibly Post-glacial 

 age of the upper clay and gravel capping the Naze cliff. The 

 palaeontological evidence wanted *had in fact been found in 1803, 

 and buried in the Annual Register till re-discovered by Mr. 

 Holmes. This harmonizes all the East Essex gravels from 

 Southend to Harwich (where doubtless the cliff-capping is of 

 like age), an early deposit of the Thames, when its mouth was in 

 a common estuary with all other East British and many West- 

 European rivers.— W. H. Dalton, F.G.S. 



METEOROLOGY. 



Rainfall of 1903.— A letter from Dr. H. R. Mill, in the 

 Times of Jan. 10, 1904, which, with tables, occupies more than 

 two columns, gives the amount of the rainfall of 1903 as taken at 

 62 stations in all parts of the British Isles. Dr. Mill informs us 

 that the rainfall was everywhere in excess of the averages. 

 " The rainfall of London in 1903 " (he remarks) " was greater 

 by at least three inches than in any other year for which records 

 exist, but a like unprecedented excess occurred at only a few of 

 the stations outside the lower Thames valley." Considering the 

 areas over which the percentage excesses were greatest, Dr. Mill 

 finds that they were three in number : the south of England 

 from about Swanage to near Brighton, running northward to 

 include the whole of the Thames Basin, and extending beyond 

 it northward from London. The second very wet area occupied 

 North Wales and the west of Cheshire and Lancashire. The 

 third lay in Scotland, north of the Caledonian Canal. " The 



