121 



ooIbnpB Jlattiralists' fxdh Club. 



Tuesday, August 22ND, 1854. 



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MONMOUTH CAP. GARWAY, GROSMONT, &c. &c 



Another — and the last of the season — of the delightful and instructive field 

 meetings of this club was held on Tuesday, August 22nd, at Moiunouth Cap. 

 The romantic beauty of the neighboiurhood, one of the very finest bits of scenery 

 in aU our beautiful SUuria, and the many memorable names £md deeds with which 

 its chequered history in past ages has been filled, added no little to the interest 

 of the day's explorations in a fresh district. 



The day was singularly favourable to a fuU appreciation of the various sources 

 of instruction and enjoyment. Now a briUant sunshine, giving almost intolerable 

 brilliancy to the stately masses of cumulus cloud, then a grateful veU drawn 

 suddenly across the sky, by a gathering'of the light nimbi (or rain clouds). About 

 noon, as the party were approaching the summit of Garway, a smart but brief 

 shower pattered down upon the broad acres of ferns, of course without sparing 

 the scientific travellers, who happened at the time to be wandering among them ; 

 but with that slight exception the weather was propitious, the swift moving 

 lower stratum of rain-cloud merely adding a charm to the naturjil beauty so 

 lavishly spread on every hand. To ruined castle, village church, wooded hill, 

 hamlet-dotted valley, and far -stretching mountain range, a thousand gradations 

 of light and shade gave endless variety of expression. To the botanist the 

 picturesque brokenness of the country, lying as it does on the confines of the two 

 Silurian counties, gave the day's explorations a special interest ; while to the 

 geologist the succession of lofty hills, islets of the mighty ocean-torrent by 

 which the Old Red Sandstone was ploughed into valleys, after its Carboniferous 

 covering had been swept off, was full of interest, all the deeper for the fact that 

 that particular district had scarcely attracted the attention of geologists at all. 

 Of course on such an occasion Uttle could be done save to glance at the field, 

 leaving the patient exploration of it to individual members who reside near the 

 locality ; but sufficient was ascertained to justify the assertion that the field 

 is a promising one. 



To descend (as Bunyan says) " from generals to particulars," we have to 

 record that the day's meeting began by the assembling of about 20 of the members 

 at the Monmouth Cap Inn at 9 a.m., most of them having been conveyed thither 

 by the Newport, Abergavenny, and Hereford railway. Having experimented 

 upon the chemistry of the breakfast table, a process not the less agreeable for the 

 miles of fresh morning air through which the savans had made their way, the chsiir 

 was taken by the President, the Rev W. S. Sj^nonds, rector of Pendock. 



The names of several gentlemen having been announced as candidates, the 

 members proceeded to adjourn to the fields. A Botanical party, headed by Mr. 



