SEUWRN/A NA 
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on the Abbey walls, occupied the attention of the botanists. 
On the Friday morning a Photographic Record and Survey for 
Kent was practically inaugurated ; in the afternoon visits were 
paid to the Aylesford Gravel-pits, the Friars, Aylesford, and the 
Downs, which thereabouts are rich in wild orchids ; and m the 
evening the Mayor and Mayoress gave a reception in the 
beautiful Museum with its many treasures, among which Mr. 
Harrison’s collection of flint implements may be specially men- 
tioned. Mr. Swanton, of Haslemere, had arranged the temporary 
Congress Museum in one room, and our Hon. Librarian, Mr. 
\V. M. Webb, had a small Nature-Study E.xhibition in another. 
At the Delegates’ Meeting on June ii our Editor urged that 
every Society should e.xpress some opinion as to the desirability 
of legislation for the protection of wild plants, and Mr. Webb 
read a paper on the teaching of Nature-Study, to hear which 
upwards of a hundred teachers and pupil-teachers attended. 
The Congress concluded with a walk to Allington Castle, which 
was described by Mr. D. C. Falcke, and to a neighbouring 
Ragstone quarry. The hospitality of the residents and the per- 
fection of the local arrangements rendered the whole meeting 
most enjoyable. The Selborne Society was officially represented 
by Mr. Webb and Mr. Downing ; and, in view of the intention 
of holding an experimental winter meeting of the Union in 
London, tiie former was elected onto its Council. Next year’s 
Congress is to be held at Reigate, under the presidency of 
Professor Flinders Petrie. 
The Erosion of the Yorkshire Coast. — Visitors to the 
Yorkshire coast next summer will have the opportunity of noti- 
cing considerable changes in the coast line, the erosion which 
has taken place during the past few months having, it appears, 
been much greater than usual. The Yorkshire Naturalists’ 
Union have for some years had a committee at work on the 
subject, and that committee assisted materially in the prepara- 
tion of the remarkable paper on the subject of the wasting of 
our English coasts which was laid before the British Association 
last year. The report of the committee on its more recent 
observations, which will shortly be issued, attributes the speci- 
ally rapid rate of erosion which marked last year in large 
measure to the persistent rainfall. The amount of water run- 
ning over the edge of the Boulder-clay cliffs has, it is said, had 
an appreciable effect in softening and dislodging large masses of 
clay, which in drier seasons would have stood for some time 
without movement. This factor of the water flowing down the 
face of the cliffs is held to be very important in considering the 
erosion which is taking place with alarming rapidity on t’ne 
Holderness coast. The report contends that no system of pro- 
tection of the coast can be complete unless the water draining 
from the fields above the cliffs is gathered together and conveyed 
down to the shore in such a manner that no erosive action from 
