3^5 



WETHERBY RE-VISITED BY THE 

 YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS. 



F. ARNOLD LEES, M.R.C.S., etc., 

 Meanwood Lodge, Leeds. 



Some might say that the Union's 'field-day' at Wetherby, 'for 

 the investigation of the Wharfe from Collingham Bridge to 

 Flint Mill, Stockeld Park, Linton, etc.,' on an unfortunately- 

 altered date (Saturday, 20th July 1901), had ' Fiaso to its friend.' 

 There would be apparent truth in the epigram, though really 

 and scientifically the ramble was not void of results. Little was 

 expected, and the unlooked-for did not befall on the occasion. 

 Seldom has a set-search proved so sterile of the New. The 

 summerland has ever an inexhaustible variety of interest, the 

 little secrets of bird, of insect, ot earth-life, albeit known to 

 the eve, can never be re-known too often ; and much was seen 

 which had at least the value of crystallising ideas amorphous or 

 nebulous before as to the history of the Wharfe gorge : its dead 

 rock and quick incdlse. For some of the attending naturalists — 

 18 all told — it was, too, a day of pre-eminent Comparisons. Yet 

 small as the gathering was, the day had its sad note in the 

 absence (for evermore) of an old and honoured officer — the late 

 John Emmet, F.L.S., of Boston Spa, whose ageing figure must 

 surely have been in the mind of more than one even of the 

 newer-school men present. In field-work, too, Comparisons are 

 neither odious nor operose — on the contrary they are fruitful in 

 conclusions. Twenty years and more had passed since ' the 

 merry men ' of the Union tramped this particular bailey of 

 greenwood and sward, under the guidance of more than one 

 4 lost leader,' Dr. H. Franklin Parsons among the rest; and the 

 material — in the Botanic department at least — was not wanting 

 for a demonstration of exactly how much and how little differ- 

 ence a quarter of a century makes in the aspect of any area for 

 which full and reliable data of an earlier and an intermediate 

 time have been preserved to us. 



As the rock which makes soil in which plants grow and on 

 which Life subsists is the basis of all things, the natural wax is 

 to take the Geological Report first. As neither the President 

 nor the Secretaries of the Section were present, the record 

 (furnished by Mr. Edwin Hawkesworth) has to be regrettably, 

 and to me unaccountably, brief. Although, as 1 understand, 

 the k Lower Magnesian ' limerock of the district is infossilous 



tqoi November 1. 



