It is hardly too much to say that no period in the history of mediaeval church architecture in England is so important as that which immediately followed the Norman Conquest. It is important in respect of the marvellous extent and quality of its own achievement; of its influence on the subsequent history of English architecture; and also (which perhaps cannot be asserted of any other period) of its influence on the architectural development of western Europe generally. By the time of the Conquest the Norman school was fully formed, and was achieving such masterpieces as Jumièges and Saint-Étienne, Caen. The Conquest provided an opportunity of which the immense energy of the Norman bishops and abbots took full advantage. In their greater churches they built on a scale which they had hitherto rarely attempted in their own country. Such activity bred experience, readiness in solving structural problems. The Norman character naturally led them to develop the logic of construction, and they were innovators in the practice of expedients which only needed fuller development to reach the essentials of what we call Gothic. It is true that this great development was not English; it was essentially Norman, the accident of the Conquest, but its importance is none the less on that account, and needs fuller recognition than perhaps it has yet received.

The Album Amicorum, or Stammbuch as it was called in Germany, where it originated, consisted of a collection of blank leaves of paper or vellum, sometimes kept loose, more often bound up as a book, the leaves being destined to receive the signatures and armorial bearings of the owner's friends and acquaintances; often the signatory added his motto or device, some classical or biblical quotations or sentences, some good advice, and a dedication. Generally speaking, the custom or fashion of the Album did not extend beyond Germany and Switzerland, and only few of them are met with in the Low Countries, Italy, and France. English Albums I have not met with, but at the British Museum (17083) there is a Scottish one to which I shall refer later on.

The great cavern of Wookey-Hole is situated two miles to the north-west of the city of Wells, in the centre of Somerset, and immediately adjacent to the thriving- village which has taken the name of the cavern, and has depended for its prosperity on the existence of the copious and usually pellucid stream, which here bursts forth from Mendip's hidden reservoirs. This is the source of the Axe, which winds its way through the lower lands, and after uniting with the sister stream of Cheddar, flows into the sea near Weston-super-mare. From Wookey-Hole the southern slope of Mendip rises in an unbroken sweep till it reaches a thousand feet above the sea, commanding a magnificent view to the east, south, and west. It is not a limestone cave in the ordinary sense of the word, since every known cavity in the immediate vicinity is not in the Carboniferous Limestone, but in the Dolomitic Conglomerate, which here attains enormous thickness. To the north, the great mass of Carboniferous Limestone, receiving the water of innumerable springs from the Old Red Sandstone and Shales and from a generous rainfall, engulfs it in a countless number of swallets, many of which are insignificant, whilst some of the larger have been opened by our exploring parties during the past few years, and followed through unimagined beauties to profound depths.

The Palace of Hampton Court is a building to which even the most unimaginative person cannot be indifferent. Built by one of the greatest and most splendid of English statesmen, and completed by one of the most magnificent of our kings, it has always been a royal pleasure-house, recalling rather the intimate private life of our sovereigns than their formal acts of state. In four years' time it will complete its fourth century of existence, and though much of its first splendour has long perished, it remains essentially a royal building; no one could take it for anything but a palace. This being so, its careful preservation is a matter of public interest, and needs no urging in this room, but for this very reason it has been thought well to lay before the Society an account of an important piece of work now being carried out there, namely, the excavation and repair of the moat and the stone bridge which spans it at the west or entrance front of the palace

The Holderness district is a vast accumulation of the great Northern Drift, a thick deposit of clay and gravel, with scratched and striated boulders of Scandinavian and other rocks marked by the grinding and drifting of glaciers and icebergs. This Northern Drift rested on the ancient surface of the chalk when that surface sloped from the Wolds, 600 ft. high, to 60 ft. and more below the sea-level. The vast bay that formerly extended from Flamborough Head to Spurn Point thus received the ice-sheets of the Glacial period, which in melting deposited debris frozen into their mass. There was thus formed an irregular crescentic area, 40 miles long and 20 miles in maximum breadth, reaching the foot of the Wolds which was then the seashore with creeks running inland. The tract rarely rises more than 30 ft. above the sea; and the natural drainage, on account of the slope of the drift, is from the seashore towards the centre line of the drift area. The surface drainage from the Wolds also tends to the same line of outflow. In ancient times the outlets of this drainage into the sea would have been higher, as the strata rise seaward; and consequently more water would have been penned up in the prehistoric lakes, and a larger proportion of the area flooded, than would now be possible, since the waste of land by the sea, at the rate of nearly two yards a year, has been going on for many centuries.

In submitting to the Society our twentieth and final report on the excavation of Calleva Atvebatuni, it may be pointed out that for the first time our work during the past season has lain altogether outside the Roman town. We were able in 1908 to bring to an end the excavation of the whole of the 100 acres within the wall, but, as was then foreshadowed, there still remained to be examined the outer defences and the ditch encircling the wall itself. This formed the work of 1909.

The series of relics exhibited to the Society come from an early settlement at Peterborough, dating from a time when flint was in general use, perhaps before the introduction of metal, at least among the poorer inhabitants of the country. The site is a promontory rising out of the Fens and lying on the north-east side of the town. The river Nene joined the Fens about half a mile to the south-west of the site, which is only a few feet above sea-level, and was almost surrounded in times of flood. So far as can be determined at present, the extent of the settlement is several acres, but the ground has not yet been moved except on the west side, where unfortunately no observations were taken. There were no surface indications of human habitation, and no burrows noticed on the promontory or in its neighbourhood. The subsoil is gravel, fine and coarse, varying in depth from 8 to 10 feet. The top 18 inches of gravel, underlying the soil, is reddish brown, mixed with a reddish loam, which sometimes occupies natural pockets 3 to 8 feet deep, cutting down through the gravel and at times reaching the cornbrash below.