VOL. XVII. (2) ORDINARY WINTER MEETINGS 157 



ORDINARY WINTER MEETINGS 



Tuesday, November 15th, 1910 

 William Crooke, F.A.I., President, in the Chair 



The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. 



Exhibits. — The Rev. A. R. Winnington-Ingram exhibited specimens of 

 ores from Cornwall. These were handed round, and the exhibitor made 

 some explanatory remarks. The tin ore came from the Botallac mine, 

 which is 1,050 feet deep, and runs for one-third of a mile under the sea. 

 The mine has been worked between 600 and 700 years, and is considered to 

 be very dangerous, because the old workings are full of water, many of them 

 are unknown, and the workmen are likely at any time to run a new passage 

 into an old one, and so be all drowned. The ore is crushed with stamps, 

 washed, and then roasted. After this process it is called black tin, and is 

 worth ;^86 55 a ton. It is then sent to Penzance to be smelted, after which 

 operation it is worth ;^I50 a ton. Specimens of serpentine, uranium, etc. 

 were also shown; The exhibitor said that according to the report of a French 

 expert, radium can be extracted from the uranium from rocks beyond the 

 Botallac mine, and Mr Winnmgton-Ingram was told that a French syndicate 

 intends finding money to work it. Radium is worth £600,000 an ounce. 



Mr Richardson exhibited a very large Nautilus {N. cf. lineolatus, Foord 

 and Crick), from the base of the Pea-Grit at Huddingknoll Hill, The Edge, 

 near Stroud. It had been given him by Miss H. M. Hutton to do what he 

 thought best with, and he had presented it to the Gloucester Museum in 

 Miss Mutton's name. 



Mr Richardson also said that the Members of the Club would be interested 

 to hear that the fine collection of Lias fossils from Alderton and Dumbleton 

 Hill, which was made by the late Mrs Hutton, and concerning which Dr 

 Thomas Wright had written a " report " that was published in volume iii. 

 of the " Proceedings " of their Club, had been presented to the Cheltenham 

 Town Museum. Mr Paris and he were arranging it, and they had the assis- 

 tance of several British Museum officials, as a number of the specimens had 

 not hitherto been recorded from this country. He was preparing a paper 

 descriptive of this collection, and there would be several appendices by 

 specialists. 



POLECATS NEAR CHEPSTOW 



The Rev. Walter Butt made an interesting statement with reference 

 to two polecats he saw in his wood the previous evening. Such animals, 

 said he, had become very rare. About a month ago, as people were coming 

 out of Church at Tutshill, near Chepstow, a gentleman called out that he 

 had just seen a polecat. The speaker did not attach much very importance 

 to the remark, but a week or two afterwards a gardener told him that he 

 had seen what he believed to be two polecats go up a cedar tree. The previous 

 evening he (Mr Butt) went into his wood, and whilst looking for a rabbit, 

 he saw two polecats go up a beech tree and stop there. 



The following papers were then communicated : — 



1. " Parish Lore." By the Ven. Archdeacon Scobell, M.A. 



2. " The ' Stone Circles ' on the Blackhedge Estate, Leckhamp- 



TON." By L. Richardson.^ 



I See Proc. Cheltenham Nat. Sci. Soc. for 1911. 

 M 



