The Report. 



133 



" In regard to finance, it will be well to explain that though the 

 balance-sheet (which will shortly be in the hands of the Members) 

 shows a balance in hand on the General Account, on December 31st, 

 of £195 135. bcl, that apparent balance is of a somewhat fictitious 

 character, as a large portion of it will shortly be absorbed in de- 

 fraying the cost of publications which the Society has now in hand. 

 The state of our funds may be generally said to be in the same 

 healthy, but not too flourishing, condition as last year. 



" As regards publications, the Society has this year made a 

 divergence from its customary issue of two Magazines in the 

 direction of publishing a large octavo volume of five hundred and 

 twelve pages, on the ' Flowering Plants of Wiltshire/ for which it 

 has been so fortunate as to secure the valuable services of one who 

 has the botany of our county at his finger ends, in the person of 

 the Rev. T. A. Preston, of Marlborough. That volume the Society 

 hopes to present to its Members within the course of a very few 

 days, and as a number of the Magazine was issued shortly after the 

 last Annual Meeting at Salisbury, and another is now in a forward 

 state of preparation, it will be seen that as regards publication the 

 Society has much exceeded its usual expenditure in that behalf. The 

 Museum and Library have received additions by donations of various 

 sorts and from various quarters, all of which have been duly ac- 

 knowledged, but they are none of them of a nature to call for any 

 special mention here. 



" We come now to the work of the Society afield, and here we 

 have some very important matters to communicate, for in the 

 extreme south of the county excavations on a large scale have been 

 made this spring by General Pitt- Rivers, and sections of considerable 

 dimensions have been cut, under the immediate direction of that 

 experienced archaeologist, in one of the old boundary ditches, known 

 as Bokerley Dyke. It had long been generally believed by the 

 great majority of Wiltshire antiquaries that Bokerley Dyke, together 

 with its fellow -Grimsdyke (to the south of Salisbury), Old Dyke 

 (which runs Over Salisbury Plain to the north of Heytesbury), and 

 our own Wans Dyke (in this immediate neighbourhood), were, what- 

 ever might have been' their object, and whoever their authors, at 



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