66 



Mr. McMurtrie concluded the Evening Meeting with a 

 paper on the " Carboniferous Strata of Somersetshire," accom- 

 panied with the exhibition of an elaborate plan of the coal- 

 pits in the neighbourhood. The chief feature of this paper — 

 which together with Dr. Bird's list of shells will be pubhshed 

 in the forthcoming number of the Proceedings — was the pro- 

 bability of coal extending under Bath, though at a great depth, 

 and the possibility of its being found some day to the east- 

 ward of Batheaston. Mr. McMurtrie suggested also that the 

 gradually increasing depth of our coal-fields might be one of 

 the arrangements of Providence, whereby the waste of so 

 valuable a mineral was prevented ; and that science may 

 eventually overcome the difficulty at present experienced in 

 working the coal-beds at a great depth, as it had triumphed 

 already over so many other obstacles which formerly wei*e 

 considered insuperable. 



EXCURSIONS. 



The 2nd of May shone brightly upon the Members for 

 their First Excursion, and there was a large muster at the 

 Railway Station in the morning for Uffington and the " Seven 

 Barrows." It will be remembered that during the Excursion 

 in 1865 to the same neighboui'hood, Mr. Wasbrough, of 

 Wantage, — who on that occasion so kindly conducted the 

 Club to Uffington Camp, the White Horse, &c., — suggested 

 that a visit should be paid another year to the " Seven 

 Barrows ; " it was, therefore, owing to this gentleman's 

 courteously renewed invitation, that one of the Excursions 

 was fixed in that direction for this year. Breaks were in 

 readiness at the Uffington Station, and conveyed the party 

 across the Berkshire Downs by the most primitive British 

 trackways a distance of six miles to the farmhouse of Mr. 

 Dawson, the Duke of Newcastle's trainer. Here, most unex- 

 pectedly, our kind host Mr. Wasbrough had provided a very 



