xlvii. 



"Geological Survey Office, Jermyn Street-, 25th February, 1896. 

 Dear Sir, The green loams you send belong to the Reading beds, the 

 sand immediately above being perhaps the base of the over-lying London 

 clay. Clays like those sent occur in several parts of Hants and Sussex, 

 but in Dorset I have only noticed them at the foot of Black Hill, where 

 they rest immediately on the chalk. Clays of this peculiar colour are 

 usually mixed with others coloured blood-red, purple, or white. The 

 meaning of these striking colours is not clearly understood ; but the 

 fossils found in them are always turtles, crocodiles, land plants, and 

 such fish and shells as live in salt lakes or brackish water lagoons. The 

 exact nature of the green colouring matter is unknown, for, being a 

 mere film on the grains of sand, it is very difficult to isolate for analysis. 

 It is probably a silicate of iron like glauconite, though not forming 

 separate grains like the glauconite of marine origin found in the green- 

 sand or dredged in the Atlantic by the Challenger. I am afraid that 

 there is little chance of finding good pipe-clay west of Moreton. 

 The Bagshot sands, in which the clay occurs, are there becoming 

 gravelly and very irregular, so that any bed of pipe- clay is likely to 

 be cut up and divided into masses too small to work. A little pipe- 

 clay occurs as far west as Outer Heath. Yours faithfully, CLEMENT 

 REID." 



BY ME. EDWARD A. FRY : 



(v.) A book entitled "A Commission to enquire of Church 

 Livings in the County of Dorset, 13th November, 1650," on which the 

 following note (communicated by Mr. Fry) was read by Mr. H. J. 

 MOULE : As a specimen of caligraphy this book is worth exhibition, 

 but beyond this, there is the interest attaching to it as apiece of history 

 relating to Dorset. 



The contents have been made use of to some extent by Hutchins in his 

 " History of Dorset " (indeed, it is not improbable that he had this very 

 book in his hands), but there are many interesting details which he has 

 not inserted. 



The book was originally in the possession of Sir Peter Thompson, of 

 Poole, a noted antiquary, of whom there is a short biography under 

 "Poole" in Vol. I., 66, of Hutchins' "History," and was probably 

 made for him and the contents duly attested as being correct copies of 

 the original documents by Henry Rooke, one of the officials of the 

 Court of Chancery in the last century. I gather from Mr. Scargill 

 Bird's "Guide to the Record Office," pp. 105-106, that the surveys of 

 church livings are contained in three volumes, and were taken pursuant 

 to an Ordinance of Parliament dated 20th December, 1649, and were 



