GEOLOGY OF THE VALE OF EVESHAM. 4> 



These deposits consist of clay, gravel, and sand, in various 

 proportions, and scattered over the country with capricious 

 irreg^ularity. Where the sand predominates, it is often of great 

 service in lightening and fertilizing the otherwise clayey soil. 

 The clay is in many places dug for brickmaking, and the gravel is 

 a valuable material for the roads. The latter is composed of a 

 variety of broken rocks, for the most part of older formation 

 th.in those of this district, but chalk flints are not unfrequent, 

 and the Echinocorys Scutatus, and Spatangus cor-anguinum, two, 

 well known chalk fossils, have been met with. In the neighbour- 

 hood of the Lias, the diluvial beds often contain rolled fragments 

 of the fossils of that formation, such as Gryphaea incurva. 

 Ammonites, &c. At the village of Bredon, the Hippopodium 

 Ponderosum occurs in the gravel in addition to the above fossils. 

 Near the oolite hills the diluvial beds contain, as might be ex- 

 pected, fragments of oolite. 



Besides borrowed fossils, the diluvial beds occasionally contain 

 fossil remains peculiar to themselves, consisting of the bones of 

 land animals, which appear to have been living in this country 

 at the time of the catastrophe which caused the deposits in which 

 they are now imbedded. This Society possesses several bones 

 of the hippopotamus, ox, and deer, found at Cropthorne.* In a 

 gravel pit at Chadbury, bones of the rhinoceros have been found ; 

 also, a fine molar tooth of that animal, which has been pre- 

 sented to this Society by W. Perrot, Esq. of Fladbury. Fossil 

 bones of some large animal have also been found in Mr. Day's 

 claypit at Bengworth, and the Society is indebted to Mr. Stokes, 

 the Surveyor of the Roads, for a fine tooth of the elephant from 

 Stratford-on-Avon.f 



Thus, then, there is ample evidence of the existence, in our 

 diluvial deposits, of these interesting remains, which carry us 

 back to a period, and, geologically speaking, not a distant one, 

 when the hippopotamus, rhinoceros, and elephant roamed, 

 undisturbed, in the vallies of Worcestershire ; and hence I beg 

 to recommend to the attention of the Society the numerous pits 

 of gravel, sand, and clay, which abound in the county, not 

 doubting that many valuable relics may thus be rescued from the 

 workmen, who, unless taught otherwise, will still continue to 

 throw them aside as worthless and unprofitable. 



It is now time to close these imperfect remarks, which, 

 may suffice to shew that this county contains much that is 

 interesting to the geologist, by whom Worcestershire has hitherto 



• The excavations at Cropthorne have been lately resumed, and have brought 

 to light a considerable number of bones, accompanied by many species of land 

 and fresh water shells, the same as now exist in the neighbourhood. An account 

 of this discovery was read to the Society on Nov. 25, 1834. 



f Since the reading of this paper, the Museum has been enriched by two molar 

 teeth of the rhinoceros, from Sandlin, near Malvern, and the tooth of an elephant 

 from Powick. 



February, 1835. — vol. ii. no. vii. c 



