240 THE LIBRARY TABLE. 



burial ground of the settlement, but the more recent finds, 

 resuking from excavations further north, are not so associated 

 hut are found in pockets (or small pot-holes) or scattered broad- 

 cast without surroundings of black earth or burnt material. 



" We have in fact passed from the habitations of the dead to 

 the land of the living who occupied this unknown, unnamed 

 settlement in the Roding Valley." 



I. Chaf.kley Gould. 



THE LIBRARY TABLE. 



The Elements of Agricultural Geology : A Scientific aid to Practical 

 Farming. By Primrose McCunndl, B.Sc, F.G.S., Tenant Farmer, 

 Ongar Park, Essex. — (Crosby, Lockivood and Co. 21s. nett] 1902. 



This valuable work is divided into fourteen chapters. One to iv. are 

 mainly occupied with the origin and formation of soils, their mineralogy and 

 physiography. Chapter v. deals with drainage and water-supply; vi., vii.^ 

 viii., ix. and x are concerned with formations and farming, and the evolution 

 of live stock occupies chapters xi., xii., xiii. and xiv 



Many who casually turn over the pages of this book and note the vast area 

 from which Mr. McConnell's examples and illustrations are derived, may be 

 inclined to suppose it too deficient in local interest to be noticed in the Essex 

 Naturalist. But a glance at the preface will reveal the fact that the author 

 for the last twenty years has been farming on the London Clay in Essex, and 

 that he dates from " Ongar Park Hall," Ongar. It is therefore obvious, that 

 no persons are so likely to find his researches specially interesting as residents 

 in that county. And in the remarks to follow it seems best to keep in the 

 main, to matters of local interest, referring those interested in the broader 

 aspects of the subject to Mr. McConnell's book. 



Our author (p. 31) complains of the apathy of the Government as to the 

 interests of agriculture shown in the case of the Geological Survey and its 

 neglect for so many years of the superficial deposits. But the public opinion 

 of the country sixty or seventy years ago was felt to be very unlikely to consent 

 to grants of money for scientific purposes unless they could be justified by the 

 strongest economical reasons, Accordingly the most weighty argument 

 put forward for the establishment of a Geological Survey, and, in its earlier 

 years, for its continuance, was the statement that a knowledge of the 

 geological structure of the country would at once check the making of useless 

 borings and sinkings and show where they might be made with success. In 

 this way immense sums of money would be saved to the country, while the 

 cost of the Survey would be comparatively trifling. Hence the Survey work 

 began in the mining districts of the north and west, and was carried on with 

 the utmost possible speed, so that its use purely as a business matter, might be 

 obvious to the most unscientific of politicians. This necessarily involved the 



