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character of the passages and the consequent difficulty of any 

 lodgment taking place in the floor before it was sealed up by 

 stalagmite. The only trace of the presence of man consisted of a 

 broken tobacco pipe and the markings in the clay of corduroy 

 trousers, which Mr. NichoUs noticed on his first entrance, and 

 which he considers must have been there for a hundred years at 

 least. The members were much indebted to Mr. NichoUs for the 

 preparation he had made for the underground descent and for the 

 information he readily gave them on local topics of interest. 



Another by-excursion was arranged on Tuesday, October 19th, 

 to visit some discoveries at Temple Cloud, lately made by Mr. 

 Henry E. Hippisley in the Coal Measures wliich crop up in that 

 locality. The train was taken to Clutton, by way of Bristol, and 

 after a pleasant walk of about three-quarters of a mile, some dozen 

 members found themselves at the mouth of a steep incline leading 

 down into the workings they were about to enter. Mr. Hippisley, 

 at whose invitation they had assembled there, had prepared every- 

 thing for the occasion ; a good supply of candles having been pro- 

 vided the descent was commenced in Indian file down a very steep 

 and slippery tramway, following the dip of the Coal Measures, 

 about 25" N.E. at this spot. At one portion of the descent the 

 impression of a tree was seen in the roof of Coal Measure sand- 

 stone, a bed of coal having been worked out below. After a 

 descent of about 100 yards a drift to the south was followed some 

 40 feet, and the object of the day's excursion was seen, an 

 unusually fine specimen of a fossil tree standing upright in the 

 underclay, measuring about five feet and a half in height, and 

 about six feet in circumference. Although the fluted surface of 

 the trunk bore apparently no traces of the markings left by the 

 leaf stalks, so characteristic of Sigillaria stems, yet there was not 

 much doubt that it belonged to that genus. The chief peculiarity 

 about this specimen consists in its standing erect ; usually these 

 stems are found lying prostrate on the underclay, through which 

 their rootlets run in all directions, but in this case the trunk is 



