before interment, as scarce a vestige of metal was found with 

 them. 



From this " field of the dead/' the party was conducted by 

 Cajit. Price to Tibberton Court, where a glass of sherry and a 

 biscuit, which had been promised, developed into a splendid 

 cold collation with Champagne and all kinds of luxuries. 



While his guests were thus agreeably occupied, Capt. Price 

 read a paper of some length, in which he had embodied all the 

 information bearing upon the slaughter at Barber's Bridge, 

 whether contained in the published records of the time, or pre- 

 served in local traditions which still linger about the spot. 



The most remarkable point in connection with the occurence 

 is, that the written reports of the time make little or no allusion 

 to it. Clarendon is wholly silent in respect of it. It would 

 seem indeed that there were circumstances attending the 

 slaughter, which gave colour to the charge of treachery on 

 the part of the Parliamentarian troops, which if true, would 

 account for the silence of their partisans on the subject. Stilh 

 there are collateral evidences in letters and pamphlets on the 

 other side, which point distinctly to a great slaughter on the 

 occasion of the surrender of the Lord Herbert's forces at 

 Highnam ; and the local tradition on the subject is clear and 

 unmistakeable. It seemed most desirable that these scattered 

 evidences should be collected and preserved ; ^nd Capt. Price's 

 paper will hand down in the transactions of the Cotteswold 

 Club all that can now be recovered of this interesting episode 

 of our civil wars. 



After dinner at the Spread Eagle, the President read his 

 Annual Eeport upon the proceedings of the Club during the 

 past year ; after which, Mr. Etheridge of the Geological Survey, 

 read a paper on the physical structure of the Watchet Area, 

 and the relation of the Secondary Rocks, to the Devonian Series 

 of West Somerset. 



This paper was illusti'ated by several beautiful sections shewing 

 some of the more remarkable " faults" by which these beds are 

 interrupted, with detailed measurements and lists of fossils 

 from the "Keuper" to the "Bucklandi Beds" of the Lower 



