Ill 



that they are capped with sand and shingle, curiously marking 

 the boundary of the estuarine period of the broader river. The 

 present stream was observed to have made its way through 

 alluvial beds, which, at the place of embarkation, are sufficiently 

 tenacious for the making of bricks, for which purpose it is largely 

 employed, '["he men at the pits said that they frequently met 

 with (he bones of large animals, perhaps Elephant, Hippopotamus, 

 Rhinoceros, and Deer, which were the inhabitants of these isles 

 long ere Brutus, grandson of ./Eneas as the unquestionable 

 authority of Geoffry of Mon mouth informs us landed on them 

 and gave them the name of British. 



Mr. Guise's and Mr. Jones' papers finished the proceedings of 

 a good day and a large meeting : many members of the Malvern 

 Club having joined the party. 



Tuesday, June 14, had been fixed for a gathering of the four 

 Clubs of this part of England, at the Speech-House, in the Forest 

 of Dean. We breakfasted at Newnham, where we found awaiting 

 us a specimen of that peculiarly hideous fish the Lophiusp iscatori us 

 (Wide-gab fishing frog, or Sea devil), caught in the river a few 

 days before. We then walked over the Bailey, and followed the 

 line of the Railway to Ciuderford, through most interesting sec- 

 tions of the Old Red Sandstone, Mountain Limestone, Millstone 

 Grit, and Coal, all lifted up at high angles of inclination, some- 

 times as much as 61 degrees. 



Hence to Lightmoor Colliery, where, in addition to a noble 

 steam engine, we were shewn a most ingenious and valuable con- 

 trivance to obviate the effect of the occasional negligence of the 

 engineer, by which the truck of minerals just raised from the 

 mine is occasionally drawn over the pulley, to the great danger 

 both of machinery and human life. In this machine, when the 

 i ruck approached too near the pulley it was caught and remained 

 suspended, while the rope, detached from it at the same moment, 

 might be carried harmlessly round and round the barrel. 



A peculiar blight upon the Forest Oaks, at a distance, was so 

 observable as to give them quite an October aspect, but we did 

 not approach sufficiently near to examine them minutely. Mr. 

 Buckman is disposed to think that it was not a blight, but arose 

 from the circumstance that the first leaves of the oak buds came 

 out early, and soon changed to a dark hue, and then to the 

 autumnal tint. The buds then, in the middle of summer, took a 

 fresh growth, and you had the varied tints arising from prema- 

 turely old leaves with an unusually new state of young leaves. 

 This was very general last summer throughout England. How- 

 ever this may be, Sir James Campbell, the Ranger of the Forest, 

 has since told me that he has often seen the same in former years, 

 both in this and other forests, and the effect on many trees which 

 he has annually measured, has been that, in the years when thus 

 affected, they have not grown in size at all. 



At the Speech-House, about seventy persons sat down to din- 

 ner half being members of the Cotteswold Club and friends 



