THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB. gg 



{Ibid. X., 145). These papers, all useful in their way, may be 

 considered as dealing with the external morphology of earth- 

 works ; Mr. Holmes taka us a step further and deals with their 

 comparative morphology. But there still remains before us for 

 future work the systematic excavation of these relics of past 

 ages, and by this method alone can we ever hope to unravel the 

 mystery of their origin. The necessity for this work is as 

 pressing now as when I brought it before the Club in 1883 

 {Trans. IV., 116) as there is always the danger of their removal 

 by agricultural and building operations. That this is a real 

 danger from tlie anthropological point of view may be gathered 

 from the account given by Mr. Holmes in his presidential 

 address of 1887 (Essex Naturalist I., 79) in which he 

 describes the destruction of the " Pictsbury Ramparts " wit- 

 nessed by himself and Mr. Cole. A large mound at Worming- 

 ford was destroyed about 1836 (Jenkins, as quoted in Essex 

 Naturalist L, 82) ; Stukeley's so-called " Alate Temple of the 

 Druids " on Navestock Common, the site of which was identified 

 by the Rev. Coode Hore and myself in 1894 (Essex Naturalist 

 VHI , 213) has practically been obliterated; the " Red Hills" 

 have in nearly every case been ploughed down or otherwise 

 tampered with, and the Uphall Camp at Barking described oy 

 Mr. Crouch is but a fragment of a large camp. I am glad to 

 learn that there is a prospect of this remnant being systematically 

 investigated in the course of this present year. 



The field covered by anthropology is so wide that large 

 numbers of apparently disconnected subjects dealt with by our 

 Society can be fairly classified under this heading. Thus the 

 presidential address by Mr. T. V. Holmes entitled " Notes on 

 the evidence bearing upon British Ethnology " {Trans. IV., 

 189) and Mr. F. Chancellor's presidential address in 1894, " -^ 

 Sketch of the Development of Architecture in Essex " (Essex 

 Naturalist VIII., 165), which deals with the subject from an 

 evolutional point of view, are both contributions to anthropology. 

 In the same volume (p. 71) is published Mr. George Day's 

 " Notes on Essex Dialect and Folklore, with some account of 

 the Divining-Rod," the only contribution to Essex Folk-lore 

 that we have hitherto received. Mr. Laver's presidential address 

 of 1888, " Fifty Years Ago in Essex" (Ibid. HI., 27) contains 

 records of old customs and beliefs that may be regarded as 

 anthropological contributions. In fact all notices of ancient 



