PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. Ivii. 



time engaging the attention of the nation, and has now grown to be 

 a most important auxiliary to the regular army. Mainly through 

 his influence the Dorset Battalion was established, which he com- 

 manded from its embodiment in 1860 to 1876, when he was 

 appointed Honorary Colonel, which position he held to the day of his 

 death. The members will remember the hearty welcome the club 

 received from him and Mrs. Mansel at Smedmore in the year 

 1889. 



The Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club 

 attained its majority last year. Since its commencement it has 

 maintained a steady course of scientific work, and has now upwards 

 of 300 members on its list. To me last year was the brightest of all 

 the previous ones, when I received the most gratifying proof of the 

 esteem and kindly feeling towards me on the part of all the 

 members by the presentation of a very handsome silver vase at 

 Gaunt's House at the last autumn meeting of the Club, where the 

 Club was hospitably entertained by Sir Kichard and Lady Glyn. 

 The presentation was accompanied by a most kind and flattering 

 eulogy by my dear and kind friend, Lord Eustace Cecil. 



Year by year the Club is favoured by the friendly assistance of 

 several eminent geological friends who are working, or who have 

 worked, in our classic county. Among these I gratefully mention Mr. 

 A. J. Jukes-Browne, who gave us an important paper last year " On 

 the Origin of the Valleys in the Chalk-Downs of North Dorset." 

 To-day we shall have one by the pen of this eminent geologist " On 

 the Origin of the Vale of Marshwood and of the Greensand Hills 

 of West Dorset." The Vale of Marshwood is a small counterpart 

 of the Weald, due to a periclinal uplift of the strata between the 

 two synclinals of Dorchester and South-East Devon (Bere Head &c.), 

 Mr. Jukes-Browne has also determined the names of fossils collected 

 by the late Rev. Charles Bingham from the basement bed of the Upper 

 Greensand at Binghain's Melcombe, and another from Osmington 

 on the >ame horizon, all of which are in the County Museum. In 

 1892 he found the Lower Greensand at the base of the cretaceous 

 beds which flank the Vale of Blackmore; until then the Gault was 



