Presidential Address by Dr. J. Beddoe, LL.D., F.E.S. 205 



Later still, the Seventy-Ninth Regiment, whose heroic deeds 

 were commemorated by Sir William Draper in the cenotaph on 

 Clifton Down, was one recruited in Somerset. 



In geology, of course, the difference between these two adjacent 

 shires is remarkable: it is that of east and west, of upper and 

 lower, .of younger and older. The oolitic beds, it is true, are to 

 some extent common; the semi-mythical stronghold of Cadbury 

 occupies an oolitic bluff'; and we here in Bradford derive our 

 water from oolitic beds, and possess in the Bradford Clay a 

 formation of considerable interest, though perhaps we ought rather 

 to be ashamed than proud of it, seing that an eminent geologist 

 who visited the town to explore it, told me he could not find a 

 native who knew where it was. 



But it is largely to our geological structure that we owe those 

 possessions which, more than anything else, are a subject of re- 

 joicing and render the county famous. It is to the great extent 

 of our chalk downs, and to the presence of sarsen stones thereon, 

 that we may ascribe probably the frequency and the preservation 

 of our barrows, and the existence of our rude stone monuments, 

 land, not to neglect a small item, that of the Westbury White Horse, 

 conspicuous to the onlooker from so many parts of this town and 

 i neighbourhood. 



Our barrows, long and round, have given a field for labour to 

 (generations of explorers, from Sir Richard Colt Hoare, through 

 Thurnam to Mrs. Cunnington ; no earthworks on this side of the 

 Atlantic, I believe, except perhaps Maiden Castle, in Dorset, can 

 at all vie with Old Sarum and Silbury Hill ; the Avebury Stones, 

 pitifully wasted as they are, have, I suppose, hardly a parallel out 

 of Brittany; and Stonehenge is absolutely unique. 



The value of these possessions is highly appreciated by many of 

 us, but certainly not by all. Seventy thousand pounds are about 

 to be paid for a single example of Holbein's works ; but our 

 Government considered Stonehenge over-rated at the price of fifty 

 thousand. I should like here to repeat that, in my opinion, much 

 [gratitude is due to Sir Edmund Antrobus for the protection he 

 affords to this really invaluable relic of antiquity. 



