xlviii PROCEEDINGS, 



branches, who was then living on a salary of £70 per annum, and 

 had to dust the tables, open the door, and act in general as a mere 

 caretaker. This was a disgrace to the great town in which the 

 museum was situated. Local museums should have a grant of 

 £50 to £100, or even £150 for the payment of specialists. 



Professor Petrie said that this was to a great extent a money 

 question. He did not think that his suggestions necessarily involved 

 additional expense. He thought it would be better that the 

 money should be divided between the mere caretaker and the 

 specialists, rather than that an attempt should be made to combine 

 them by employing one man who could not possibly be a specialist 

 on all points. Indeed, those curators who were more than mere 

 caretakers, would by his plan receive a larger amount of money 

 than before by rendering their ser\dces in a number of places, 

 instead of being confined to one. It would be better to have 

 a dozen men of science and fifty caretakers, than sixty curators 

 all receiving a very inadequate salary. 



Geological Plwtorjraphs. — The secretaryship of the Geological 

 Photographs Committee has been resigned by Mr. Osmund W. Jeffs 

 and accepted by Mr. "W. W. Watts, and the collection of photo- 

 graphs is now under his care in the library of the Museum of 

 Practical Geology in Jermyn Street, where it is open to inspection. 

 At this Conference Mr. Watts said that though much assistance 

 had been received from Leicestershire and some other counties 

 during the past year, a very large area in England was still 

 unphotographed. Very few photographs had been received from 

 the eastern counties. I regret to say that Hertfordshire is still 

 one of the counties very poorly represented in the collection, the 

 only photographs from our county being a few small ones (quarter- 

 plate) taken by myself. 



Erratic Blochs. — Mr. Watts stated that the work of the Erratic 

 Blocks Committee was being largely done by the committees of 

 local Societies, and that some Societies in Yorkshire were doing 

 most admirable work. What is required is to record the position, 

 height above the sea, lithological character, size, and origin (when 

 possible) of our erratic blocks or boulders, to report other matters 

 of interest connected with them, and to take measures for their 

 preservation. Some of this work has been done for Hertfordshire 

 by members of our Society, but much yet remains to be done. 

 Reference should be made to a paper by Mr. H. George Fordham 

 in our ' Transactions' (Vol. I, p. 163), which gives full .information 

 as to how to record our boulders. 



Underground Waters. — Although the Committee for investigating 

 this subject has ceased to exist, Mr. C. E. De Ranee, its former 

 Secretary, said that he hoped the delegates of the Corresponding 

 Societies would urge their members to record carefully in their 

 districts everything bearing on this matter, not only as regards the 

 geological nature of the strata, but also as to the temperature of 

 water obtained from considerable depths. 



