SEsssoN 1891-92. xxiii 



were seen. The oak vestry-table is a good specimen of cai-ved 

 Jacobean work, and was once the coumuiniou-tablc. 



The Vicarage grounds were next visited, and here the only moth 

 captured during the afternoon's walk, Enpithecia vulgata (the 

 common pug) was taken on a wall. 



The President then conveyed the thanks of the Society to the 

 Rev. Kenneth Gibbs, and the members left for Delrow House, 

 where they were very kindly received and entertained by Mr. and 

 Mrs. Larkin. The house, which is about half a mile from 

 Aldenham Church, is believed to have been built by its first 

 possessor, the "Will. Hutchinson" whose tomb had just been seen. 

 Mr. Larkin pointed out the date of its construction, 1667, on 

 the lead water-spouts. It has recently been much added to. 



After tea had been partaken of, the conservatories were visited, 

 and Mr. Larkin' s very valuable collection of orchids was examined 

 with much interest. An hour was spent in strolling about the 

 extensive and picturesque grounds, which contain some fine old 

 trees, and then, after thanking their host and hostess, some of 

 the members walked to Radlett Station, and others by way of 

 Patchett's Green and Hearts Spring Wood to Watford. 



Field MEETrNG, 28Tn May, 1892. 

 ST. ALBANS. 



The chief object of this meeting was to enable the members 

 of the Society to see a section of strata between St. Albans and 

 Haiiienden recently exposed by the widening of a cutting on 

 the Midland Railway, and for this purpose permission had been 

 obtained from the Railway Company for the party to walk along 

 the line. The meeting was under the direction of the President 

 and Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S. 



The members assembled at the Midland Station, St. Albans, 

 and, after a walk of about a mile to the north, came upon the 

 newly-cut face of the cutting on the eastern side of the line. 

 At this point, and once or twice afterwards in the course of 

 the walk along the cutting, which extends for about a mile 

 towards Harpenden, a halt was made, and Mr. Whitaker explained 

 the interesting features of the section exposed. 



The Chalk — the lowest rock here seen — was, he said, in places 

 capped by a thin coating of sands belonging to the Reading Series, 

 and this was covered with Drift beds. The bedding of the strata 

 was seen to be very uneven, this being caused by the irregular 

 dissolution of the Chalk, which in some places had been dissolved 

 away to such an extent (by the percolation into it, through the 

 overlying beds, of water holding carbonic acid in solution) that 

 "pipes" were formed, and, as the Chalk was dissolved, the beds 

 above fell in, or gradually sank, in a very irregular manner, so 

 as to take, in section, the form of great waves, their hollows often 

 going below the deep cutting, and their crests, and even the Chalk 

 on which they rest, sometimes rising nearly to the top. Many 



