160 
Midland Railway Company. An additional Excursion was, how- 
ever, arranged: on June 14th’ to view Lucknam Park, by the 
consent of Mrs. Waimesley, and Colerne Church, with the 
‘splendid and extensive view from its tower. 
Silbury and Avebury, April 26th, 1898.—The Field Club com-' 
menced the rota of Excursions for the year by visiting the 
ancient and interesting monuments of prehistoric ages, Silbury, 
the largest tumulus in Europe, and Avebury, a vast circular 
earthwork, with its gigantic unwrought Sarsens, about seven 
miles from Calne, in Wiltshire. Leaving Bath at 9 o’clock, a 
goodly party of 20 Members were conveyed by the Great 
Western Railway in a little over an hour to Calne, where a 
‘brake was waiting them at the Lansdowne Arms Hotel. Four 
white horses were speedily harnessed, and the son of Mr. C. E, 
Fox, the proprietor of the hotel, mounted the box, and off the 
brake went along the old London Road, through Quemerford by 
Blackland Park, until the village of Cherhill was reached, with 
the Lansdowne Column on Oldbury Hill on the right, and the 
White Horse on the lower escarpment of the chalk down. This 
horse is more effective when viewed from a considerable distance,’ 
and has no claim to antiquity. A resident doctor of Calne, 
named Christopher Alisop, cut it out of the turf in 1780, It is - 
129 feet in length, and 142 feet in height. In the old coaching 
‘days Cherhill beasted of four inns ; one remains with the quaint 
name of “ Labour in Vain.” Proceeding past Yatesbury on the 
left at the sixth mile, Beckampton was reached with the ex- 
tensive training establishment of Mr. Darling, who turned out 
the winner of the Derby last year, and a half-mile further the 
gigantic tumulus of Silbury was reached and climbed by nearly 
all the party. This huge mound covers five acres of ground, is 
126 feet high, has a cireuit of 1,657 feet at its base and 312 feet 
at its summit, and its intention is still, and is ever likely to 
remain, incomprehensible to archeologists. It is situated S. 
of Avebury, and between the two extremities of the avenues of 

