191 



This huge mass of ruin is to him an evidence of the power of that mighty agent, 

 water, since he correctly traces the sUp to the percolation of water which had 

 fallen upon the field, and had made its way out through the loosely compacted 

 mass of fossils which formed the substratum. The rock is the Upper beds of the 

 Aymestrey Limestone, which are composed almost wholly of madrepores, corals, 

 shells of the Pentamerus and the Atrypa — extinct bivalves allied to the famihar 

 cockle of the present day — besides the curious Leptaena, with its ridged margin 

 and its beautifully striated surface, and the flat shells allied to the pilgrim's 

 " escallop," so familiar to ballad and romance, but which can only boast the 

 hard names of Orthis, Avicula, Rh>TiconeUa, and such like. This singular chaos 

 in miniature would doubtless long ago have disappeared by the simple process 

 of the conversion of the rock into lime, but for the fact that it is, commercially 

 speaking, too impure to repay the cost of burning it. Like many other things in 

 this world, its worthlessness protects it ; and thus an instructive scene is preserved 

 for the student of nature. 



The slip, as our local readers know, occurred nearly thirty years ago, * in the 

 evening. An eye witness assured us that he was sitting quietly in his cottage, 

 which is not far oS, when he heard a loud noise like distant firing. He ran out, 

 and saw the vast mass of some thousand tons in weight, rolling down into the 

 deep valley below. The surface of the hill all around seemed to quake with the 

 effort, and presented to his mind the idea of one of the terrible earthquakes of 

 which, happily, in this country, we only know that which we learn from books. 



The fragments are slowly crumbling down under the influence of the seasons ; 

 vegetation is sUently clothing them with an ever-extending robe of verdure, and 

 in process of time all these glacier -like ruins wUl be hidden from sight ; but, for 

 long years to come the Dormington Landshp will be a scene well worth the visit 

 of the lover of nature, while it is a noble class-room for the student of geology. 



In passing from this spot, the botanists of the party noticed the abundance 

 of the Greater Knap-weed, Centaurea Scabiosa, a noble plant, especially when 

 covered with its large purple-rayed heads of flowers, while the delicate White 

 Meadow Saxifrage, Saxifraga granulata, a characteristic plant of the district, 

 was also'noticed as abundant. 



From the Landshp the party proceeded to the British Camp on the summit 

 of the range of hills, which has, for some unknown reason, been styled the camp of 

 the Saxon St. Ethelbert. Here some of the party bestowed a passing glance upon 

 the remains of the earth works, which are most perfect on the western side — the 

 opposite to that by which they had entered the C2unp — while others looked with 

 equal deUght and interest upon the unsurpassed view over the broad chsmipaign 

 of Herefordshire, in which the beautiful Wye revealed itself here and there, 

 glittering like silver even amid the somewhat clouded atmosphere. The tower of 

 Hereford Cathedral and the Church spires were lighted up for a minute or two 



* Its occurrence is recorded in the Hereford /o«r7t<z/ of March 20th, 1844. The date of 

 the landslip is not given.— £diii>r. 



