XXX111. 



The Secretary laid on the table the new Schedules for recording the 

 Flowering of Plants, Appearances of Birds and Insects, Annual Rainfall 

 and Meteorological Phenomena throughout the County, for which the 

 Sub-Committee had been appointed at the December meeting. 



The subject of the Returns of the Prehistoric Monuments of the County 

 was introduced by the Secretary. After a prolonged discussion it was 

 decided as a preliminary step to purchase the New Ordnance Map of the 

 County on the 6-inch scale at a cost of 10 or thereabouts. This map 

 should be located in the County Museum, provided the Museum 

 Committee gave their consent ; the cost for the said map to be defrayed 

 by private subscriptions. The next step after the purchase of the map 

 would be that of correcting errors and omissions in the matter of the 

 Prehistoric Monuments of the County. The President then referred to 

 an interesting interment which had been discovered in a fissure at 

 Portland and brought to the notice of the Club through Mr. Richardson, 

 by Colonel Russell, R.E., Commandant of the District. There were 

 four individuals buried there, a man and woman and two children, and, 

 associated with them, about 10J feet below the surface, were the 

 remains of various animals of the chase, which had been pronounced by 

 Mr. Lydekker to be those of the Roe Deer, Wild Boar, and of Fish- 

 Bream and Limpett. In the environments of the Fissure were some well 

 formed flints. 



The President then read the first paper on the programme for the day, 

 " On Ophthalmosaurus Pleydelli (Lydekker), anew Icthyosaurus from the 

 Kimmeridge Clay, Gillingham." Mr. H. J. Moule read a paper on " A 

 Book called Dorchester Domesday," in the possession of the Corporation 

 of the Borough of Dorchester. 



Mr. T. B. Groves read a paper "On the Telegraph in Dorset before 

 the Days of Electricity," descriptive of the method of signalling adopted 

 at the telegraph stations at the time of the threatened invasion of 

 England at the commencement of this century. Since this paper 

 was read at the meeting the author has received various communications 

 on this subject, which have been added as an appendix to the original 

 paper, and will be found at p. 135 of the volume. 



Reference was made by the Rev. H. S. Solly to an illustration which 

 had recently appeared in the Daily Graphic, of Golden Cap in flames, 

 stating this to be a common occurrence. Mr. Solly said that the writer 

 had evidently mixed up two events. In the neighbourhood of Charmouth 

 there was a recorded instance of spgntaneous combustion of the cliffs 

 in the year 1751, and at Holworth Cliff, Weymouth Bay, in the year 

 1841, 



