Xl PEOCEEDINGS, 



mission is now drawing to a close, and its report will probably soon 

 be issued. In the meantime a petition against the threatened 

 abstraction, by the J^ew Eiver and East London Water Companies, 

 of increased quantities of water from the Chalk of Hertfordshire, 

 has been prepared by the Parliamentary Committee of the Hert- 

 fordshire County Council, and presented to Parliament. 



The sixth volume of the present series of the Society's 

 ' Transactions ' has been completed and the seventh has been 

 commenced, three parts of the former and two of the latter, 

 containing 1 62 pages and one plate, having been published during 

 the year. In the sixth volume the only papers not of local interest 

 are one on " Seeds and Pruits," and another on "Meteorological 

 Photography," the latter, however, appealing to local photographers 

 to take meteorological photographs in the county. The Presidential 

 Addresses of the Earl of Clarendon on "Field Sports," and on 

 "The Horse," are of local interest insomuch as they recount his 

 lordship's own observations and experiences in Hertfordshire. In 

 the meteorology and phenology of the county there are in this 

 volume the usual annual reports, and an analysis of " Half-a- 

 Century's Eainfall in Hertfordshii-e " ; and in geology there is 

 a paper on ' ' Geological Photography in Hertfordshire ' ' ; while 

 hydro -geology occupies a large portion of the volume, there being 

 four papers bearing on the subject — a record of water-level in the 

 Chalk at Odsey, near Royston ; a second instalment of " Hertford- 

 shire Well-sections" ; a paper of 33 pages on " Water and AYater- 

 supply" ; and a statement of the percolation of rain through soil at 

 Berkhamsted. In local botany the only paper is one on "Diseases 

 of Plants in Hertfordshire." In zoology the birds observed in 

 the county each year are reported on as usual, and the Tineina 

 and other Lepidoptera of Sandridge are enumerated. A paper on 

 "Local Scientific Investigation" embraces all these subjects and 

 also anthropology. There are also a few miscellaneous notes on 

 meteorology, botany, and zoology; and in the Proceedings are 

 abstracts of several papers, mostly not of local interest. 



The thanks of the Society are due to Mr. H. George Fordham 

 for the two plates illustrating his paper on Water-level in the 

 Chalk ; to Mr. Hopkinson for the rainfall- station map of Hertford- 

 shire, and the map of the Thames Basin ; and to Mr. Upfield Green 

 for the plan and section of Bennet's End brickfields. 



Owing to the insufiiciency of the accommodation provided for 

 the evening meetings at the Watford Public Library, it became 

 necessary at the end of the year to find more suitable head-quarters 

 for the Society. Under these circumstances the Governors of the 

 Watford Endowed Schools kindly agreed to provide the requisite 

 accommodation in their school-buildiugs, and the Council has every 

 reason to be satisfied with the provision which has been made 

 for the evening meetings, and also for the accommodation of the 

 Society's library. 



