1 



are very pure and white. It was stated that they go down 

 fourteen feet below the level of the present workings, the chalk 

 occurring at such a depth that it is found more economical to cart 

 it from Bushey than to obtain it on the spot. 



The members then rode by Oxhey Lane to Harrow "Weald, 

 inspecting on the way the ancient earthwork known as Grimes' 

 or Grajm's Dyke. Tea had been ordered at " The Case is 

 Altered," in the " City," so called because the site of a Koman 

 station, and after partaking of it, and obtaining from the high 

 ground a good view of the country towards London, including the 

 Bagshot Sand outlier of Harrow Hill, the party dispersed, some 

 riding to London and others to Watford and St. Albans. 



Field Meeting, 10th June, 1899. 

 RICKMANSWORTH AND HAREFIELD. 



Some of the finest and most instructive sections of the Upper 

 Chalk in the neighbourhood of London are to be seen at Hareheld, 

 where, facing the Grand Junction Canal in the valley of the Colne, 

 there are three large chalk-pits within a distance of a mile and 

 a half, permission to visit which had been obtained. The meeting 

 was under the direction of Mr. W. Whitaker, F.R.S., President of 

 the Society, and Mr. John Hopkinson, Hon. Secretary, and was 

 held in conjunction with the Geologists' Association. Most of the 

 members of the County Society cycled from Watford, etc., a few 

 drove, and the members of the Geologists' Association came by 

 train from London. 



Ascending a hill half a mile south of Eickmansworth, a very 

 fine view of the valleys of the Colne, Chess, and Gade was obtained. 

 The hill is capped by a thick bed of gravel, one advantage of which, 

 Mr. Whitaker said, is that we may call it what we like and no one 

 can contradict us, for it may be almost anything. He could only 

 say that it was a pebbly gravel, as coloured on the Geological 

 Survey map. He believed that it was not Post-glacial, and that 

 it had nothing to do with the existing river in the valley below. 

 In this valley watercress-beds might be seen, fed by springs from 

 the Chalk, and sometimes by borings made to obtain an increased 

 supply of water. 



Less than another half-mile to the south is Woodcock Hill Kiln, 

 and here the plastic mottled clays of the Reading Beds were seen 

 surmounted by the basement- bed of the London Clay, consisting 

 of sandy clay and loam with a layer of flint-pebbles in the middle. 

 Below the mottled clay are fairly-white and brownish sands, and 

 resting in hollows in the London Clay is a clayey gravel. The 

 mottled clays were seen to hold up water which percolates through 

 the sandy bed above it. 



A pleasant walk of two miles across the fields brought the party 

 to Harefield, where tea was partaken of. The Harefield Brick and 

 Cement Works, just beyond the southern end of the village, were 



