o6 THE COMING OF AGE OF 



fifteen years ago. Possibly the renewal of this investigation may 

 be undertaken at some future period by the Club. 



In the annual presidential address which I had the honour 

 of delivering on Jan. 27th, 1S83 (Trans. III., 62), I ventured to 

 put forward the suggestion that we should undertake to prepare 

 a complete catalogue of the pre-historic remains of our County. 

 This suggestion was further elaborated and read at the South- 

 port meeting of the British Association the same year {Trans. 

 IV., 116), and our Hon. Secretary, Mr. Cole, commenced to 

 collect materials for sucli a catalogue. Owing to pressure of 

 other work but little progress has been made by the Club in this 

 matter, and in the meantime the Society of Antiquaries has set 

 the scheme practically going by inaugurating a system of regis- 

 tration of ancient remains on the existing Ordnance Maps 

 (Essex Naturalist, III., 91). The necessity for carrying out 

 systematic archaeological surveys of the Counties was quite 

 recently brought before us b\' Mr. C. H. Read, and that is why 

 I have ventured to refer to it again. The modern publication of 

 the Victoria County Histories has also been the means of emphasiz- 

 mg the necessity for archaeological surveys, and our own Coimty 

 has been undertaken for this work by our Members, Messrs. 

 G. F. Beaumont and I. C. Gould, who have prepared two maps 

 registering respectively by means of symbols the remains of the 

 stone, bronze and iron ages, and the ancient earthworks, camps, 

 mounds, tumuli, &c. The Roman and later remains will also be 

 dealt with, but these do not come within ovu" province. Large 

 numbers of the records entered by the authors above mentioned 

 are taken from our pages and these will serve as vouchers for 

 our utility in connection with pre-historic archaeology. 



I have already referred to our indebtedness to Mr. Worthing- 

 ton Smith. We have had the benefit of his co-operation as 

 mycologist and archaeologist as well as in his capacity of artist 

 and engraver. The first of his series of papers on " Primaeval 

 Man in the Valley of the Lea" was read in 1882 and revised for 

 publication in 1883 (Trans. III., 102) and followed by three com- 

 munications on the same subject in i887 (Essex Naturalist, I., 

 36, 83, 125). All these papers are profusely illustrated by the 

 author's own engravings of implements, &c. Other papers from 

 his pen, and also illustrated by his pencil, "On Neolithic and 

 Palaeolithic Scrapers, replaced and reworked " and on " Palaeo- 



