Ml. 65.] EXCURSION TO EAST HEKDRED. 269 



be found to have a thickness of 650 feet, the Upper Greensand 

 of 40 feet, and the Gault of 150 feet. Op. cit., p. 142. 



At the time when this announcement was made, no well in 

 London had been sunk to a greater depth than 300 feet in the 

 Chalk ; but now we can appeal to no less than four deep borings 

 in the Metropolis, which afford the most convincing proof of the 

 reliability of the data, and the accuracy of the reasoning by which 

 Mr Prestwich arrived at his interesting result. ... It will be 

 admitted on all hands that the agreement between the estimated 

 and proved results is marvellously close. 



Further investigations for a better water-supply for 

 Oxford led our Professor far afield. A long expedi- 

 tion in quest of perennial springs was to the Cottes- 

 wolds, approached from Bourton-on-the- Water. On one 

 other he ventured to take his class namely, to the 

 remote village of East Hendred, nestling in a depres- 

 sion of the chalk-hills, several miles above Wantage. 

 From the railway at Didcot a brake carried about a 

 dozen of the party, the others proceeding on foot. 

 On the return journey, when on the summit of the 

 bare down (the driver of the brake having left the 

 road and having begun to go at a foot's pace down 

 the uneven, grassy slope), the party was overtaken 

 by a terrific thunderstorm. The undergraduates had 

 just begun to troop down in the direction of the fine 

 spring issuing at the foot of the hills, and which 

 had been the sight reserved for them on their home- 

 ward road, when the rain fell as if from a water- 

 spout. Coats and umbrellas were never carried. Our 

 Professor pulled off his overcoat, throwing it to the 

 first man overtaken. The only course was to make 

 for Didcot, and, pressing on at their hardest pace, it 

 was happily reached just in time for the train for 

 Oxford. Fortunately none of the students caught cold, 



