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that is, the great valley whicli extends from the river Dee, which now flows 

 into the sea to the N.W., near Chester, all along the low lying country to the 

 E. of the Malvern s, and on, southwards along the course of the Severn, till at 

 last it joins the sea in the Bristol Channel. 



All along these Malvern Straits, as geologists call them, and in 

 all the valleys which extend from them, are beds of gravel and sand 

 stratified in exactly the same way as we may see them in any river bed, 

 and revealing as certainly, their origin, and the conditions under which they 

 were found. No one who examines these beds can for a moment doubt that the 

 only possible way in which they can have been deposited was by the action of the 

 sea washing backwards and forwards, wearing down the subjacent rocks and 

 throwing them down at various depths in proportion to the size and weight 

 of their materials, the lighter floating out further from the land, and the heavier 

 being deposited close to the shore. On examining the contents of these gravel 

 deposits we find that while a great part of them consists of materials brought 

 from a great distance, and ground up into pebbles of various sizes, far the 

 largest proportion is derived from the subjacent rocks, which is just what we 

 might expect. Professor Euckman has also observed that the general character 

 of the flora of that valley is more marine than that of the surrounding country ; 

 plants which affect the sea-shore having lingered longer in its neighbourhood 

 than in higher ground, where traces of them are now obliterated. All these 

 facts point to one conclusion, and prove that the country around us, and the 

 whole of "Wales was at the period that these sands and gravels were deposited, 

 cut off by a great strait from the rest of England. 



The country in the immediate neighboiirhood of Shrewsbury is about 

 110 feet above the level of the sea. I am not sure of the level of the 

 counti-y intervening between that place and the course of the Dee, but it 

 caimot be very much more, as according to the map the Severn and the 

 Dee approach each other near the same spot. We see, then, that a 

 depression of only say 150 feet would suffice to transform all this side . of 

 England into an island. When we reflect upon how slight an elevation 150 feet 

 represents compared with the enormous altitudes at which there are evident 

 indications of sea beaches (one is mentioned in North "Wales at the height of 

 200 feet above the sea) — when we consider that probably since the introduction 

 of the human race to this earth no very gi-eat change has taken place in the 

 configuration of the land (for it is believed that the drifts of the Malvern 

 Straits are older than those of Abbeville, in which flint weapons occur), we 

 may form some idea, though it must be admitted a very dim and indistinct 

 one, of the last scenes of the formation of the world as we now behold it. 



Nor has the glacial period passed without leaving its traces hereabouts. We 

 have not, indeed, the rounded and scored rocks of the Llanberris Pass to indicate 

 the existence of vast glaciers, writing with pens of adament on their surface the 

 indeUible characters which teU their history, but we have, scattered over the 



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