of the two-penny Cakes. The sale has increased by at least a fourth during the present year (1841), and, in the month of August, Mr. Beesley sold, on an average, 5,400 weekly. Some of the Cakes have been sent by him, at various times, to America, and one package to Australia. The proprietor of one of the other establishments in Banbury forwarded, in 1838, a large quantity to India.

There is a very considerable manufacture of AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS carried on at Banbury. Among those which were exhibited and which drew much approval at the late meeting of the Banbury Agricultural Association held at Banbury on the 21st September 1841, or previously at the great meeting of the Royal English Agricultural Society held at Liverpool on the 21st July, were various patent turnip-cutting machines, a patent landpresser or roll made on the lever principle, a patent drill on the same principle, a steer drill, a cake-crusher, and a hand thrashing machine, all by Banbury inventors.

spent most of his time hanging over the hatch of his shop door, while his wife, "Betty White," was industriously engaged in keeping up the fame of the Cakes. Betty White was jealous of her credit in other respects, and used to say,-"My name is quiet Betty,' I never meddles nor makes with nobody; no mealman never calls upon me twice:" she was querulous, and often complained of the hardness of the times and the increasing price of the articles she used in the Cakes: "Only think," she used to say, when customers remarked that the Cakes were smaller, "there's currans, they be double the price th' used to be, and then there's butter an' sugar, why they be double the price th' was formerly." On customers

RHUBARB is cultivated and prepared in considerable quantity in the neighbourhood of Banbury, for medicinal purposes.

At Middleton Cheney and Chacombe there is a considerable manufacture of the finest kind of SILK STOCKINGS. William Horton Esq., the inventor of the elastic knotted hose, resided in his younger years at Chacombe, and worked there as a framesmith.

complaining of the size of the halfpenny Cakes, she would say, "Ghow much butter and sugar y' could buy for a ha'penny."

help y', I 'oonder

Jarvis White was a profane, as well as an idle, man, but he would speak a word in favour of his wife's Cakes; and, to show how light they were, he tried to make people believe that a sparrow came one day into the shop and flew off with a cake in its mouth. When it was wet on a Fair day, he used to say, "If the D has a black cloud, he's sure to blow it up at Banbury Fair."-Information from the late Mr. James Lush, Mr. Robert Gardner, and Mr. Thomas Padbury.

It is probable that the Banbury Cakes of the present day are made pretty nearly the same as those of the time of Holland and Ben Jonson. The present Mr. Dumbleton (who was born in 1755) remembers this sort of Cakes as being considered an antiquated production in the days of his youth; and he states that his father, who was born in the year 1700, spoke of them in the same way. The importation to this country of those small grapes which are the "currants " of commerce, and which are used in the manufacture of Banbury Cakes, was much earlier than this period. Ben Jonson (in his "Bartholomew Fair ") writes of the Banbury Puritan, a baker and cake-maker, as having "undone a grocer here, in Newgate market, that broke with him, trusted him with currants, as arrant a zeal as he." The Cakes are of an oval, but rather diamond-shaped, figure: the outside is formed of rich paste, and the interior consists of fruit, &c., resembling the contents of a mince pie.

&

BETTY WHITE.

From an original in the possession of Mr. Wm. Brain.

THE BOTANY OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF BANBURY,

WITH A SKETCH OF THE GEOLOGY.30

The Plants growing wild in the neighbourhood of Banbury were collected some years ago by George Gulliver Esq., and by the author of the "History of Banbury;" and more lately have been again examined by the present writer, and partially by others: but nothing had been published relating to their habitats until the appearance of Mr. Gulliver's "Catalogue" a few months since.31 The "Flora of Oxfordshire" of Mr. Walker, and other botanical works, make little or no mention of this neighbourhood. Mr. Gulliver's catalogue contains 408 species of Flowering Plants arranged upon the Linnæan System, and a considerable number of Acrogens, chiefly minute Fungi, Lichens, and Mosses.

The following List of Plants is intended to apply generally to a circuit of about three miles round the Town: Tadmarton Heath, however, a spot frequently mentioned, and a further examination of which would, I doubt not, reward the observer, is five miles distant; and in the cases of very rare plants, still greater latitude has been allowed.

The soil of the neighbourhood, although generally very fertile, is but little diversified; no very considerable elevations occur; the improved drainage has destroyed the bogs; and woods, with the exception of a few plantations, are wanting: all these tend to diminish the number of indigenous species; nevertheless the list here given will, I believe, be found to bear comparison with those of most other districts. It contains 521 species of Flowering Plants, including a few doubtful ones introduced on the authority of Mr. Gulliver. Of the Acrogens, notwithstanding the

(30) Furnished for this work by Mr. Thomas Beesley.

(31) A Catalogue of Plants collected in the Neighbourhood of Banbury. By George Gulliver, F. R. S., F. Z. S., Assistant Surgeon to the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards.

advantage taken of the valuable Catalogue of those plants by Mr. Gulliver, I fear the list will be found deficient, as I have myself paid but little attention to this branch of Botany." In the present state of our knowledge of these plants, this deficiency is perhaps not much to be regretted; particularly as Fungi, in which it probably occurs to the greatest extent, appear to be less restricted by local causes. Partly for this reason, the habitats of these plants have generally been omitted.

As some connexion undoubtedly exists between the vegetation and the geological or mineral character of a district, it will be proper to premise a few remarks on the

GEOLOGY OF THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.

The town and neighbourhood of Banbury are situated for the most part on the Inferior Oolite, the ferruginous sandstone of which is very apparent in the buildings of the town. On the east, along the vale of the Cherwell, a narrow arm of Lias occupies the surface, extending two or three miles to the south of the town. From this formation is quarried the Limestone locally known as "Banbury Marble," equivalent to the "Cottam Marble" of stone-masons. A blue marly sandstone containing a considerable quantity of mica is quarried for flagstones near New Land from the Inferior Oolite. About a mile to the west of the town, on the top of the low hill rising above Neithorp, called Constitution Hill, and immediately on the east of Withycomb farm-house, a subsided mass of Great Oolite of a few acres in extent occurs, the strata of which are considerably inclined and plainly identified by their characteristic fossils; and are evidently the remains of a formation once continuous over this neighbourhood, which has been swept away by diluvial agency.3 Abundant traces of watery action are exhibited in the fields beyond this mass, called Bretch, a stony spot full of hills and hollows, and containing the Cave already alluded to in the History of Banbury (p. 296, note 40) which is undoubtedly the effect of this action. No alluvial deposits of consequence occur in this neighbourhood.

(32) I am greatly indebted to Mr. Baxter, Curator of the Botanic Garden, Oxford, for his kind assistance in some doubtful cases.

(33) This mass may be readily examined in a pit for digging Limestone at the top of Constitution Hill.

A series of fossil vertebræ were discovered a few years since in the marly sandstone of Warkworth, a stone identical in character and position with that quarried near New Land. They probably belonged to some large marine lacerta, but were dispersed soon after discovery, and have not since been heard of. Fragments of the claws of marine crustacea, of the crab or lobster families, also occur.34 Fossil trees are not uncommon. The other fossils are in no way remarkable as peculiar to the beds of this district.

Deep wells sunk into the Lias in the lower part of the town generally afford an alkaline water. The following analysis of the water at Mr. Sedgley's, High Street, may be taken as an example:

:

With regard to the geological stations of the plants enumerated in the following list, the greater part are situated on the "Red land" of the Inferior Oolite. At Andrews' Pits, Crouch Hill, Bretch, North Newington, Wroxton Mill, King's or Balscot Mill, Shutford Lane, Drayton, and Hanwell, a stony soil, chiefly on the upper beds of the Inferior Oolite, occurs. The Mill meadow at Banbury, most of the stations by the Cherwell and Canal, and at Grimsbury, are on the Lias: whilst the more distant places, as Great Tew, Chipping Norton, and Deddington, are mostly on the Great Oolite. I know of no plant peculiar to the subsided mass of the latter formation on Constitution Hill. Tadmarton, Hooknorton, or Wigginton Heath is occupied by the sands of the Inferior Oolite. A glance at the ordnance map will show the situations of most of the places named.

I know of no correct series of meteorological observations made at Banbury from which the Temperature, Pressure, &c. can be deduced. The mean temperature of Springs is 51°; and probably that of the Air differs but little from this.

(34) Conybeare and Phillips's Geology of England and Wales. Mr. Conybeare resided some time in this neighbourhood.