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distinguishes him fi'om all other created beings, here is a fitting place 

 for its silent outpouring. 



We hold in our hand a tide-worn portion of one of the stone lilies 

 which, in the words of Edwin Forbes, " waved wilfully its graceful stem," 

 in the Silurian sea, at a time so remote from that represented by the 

 ancient stratum upon which we are standing, as to perplex the imagination 

 in any attempt to reahze a comparative idea of the lapse of cycles 

 between them, or of those required either for the pre-existent, or subsequent 

 development of the earth's crust. At our feet lies the crushed shell 

 of a large ammonite, covered with the separated star-like joints of the 

 Lias Pentacrinite, not uncommon here, seeming to suggest, by its agree- 

 ment in genei'al design with the Divine idea manifested in the older form, 

 that the all-pervading intelligence, infinite and eternal, is, indeed, unmindful 

 of nothing that it has made. 



A glance at the great lias outUer of Robinswood Hill, looming up from 

 the centre of the vale, reminds us that since the changes we have con- 

 templated, others as remarkable have taken place : for we recollect that 

 this must once have been conterminous and continuous with the liassic 

 slopes of the Cotteswolds, which fonn the back ground of the landscape, 

 and flank it on the right. These, we know, are merely capped by 

 beds of the Inferior Oolite, the detritus and fossils of which, mingled with 

 those of the lias, strew the valley from beyond Evesham, to the quarry 

 on the cliff which we have already visited, evidencing action to which they 

 have been subjected, by which the deep combs and bays, which indent 

 them, have been formed. The recent origin of the gi-avels is apparent 

 from the remains of the great extinct pachyderms still found amongst them, 

 and occasionally the sheUs of MoUusca still existing around us. 



We have expressed some doubt as to the origin of the Drift which 

 overlies these gravek, to which the epithet "Northern" has been expressly 

 applied, because, the further we travel south-westward, the heavier and 

 larger do we find the pebbles, which constitute it, become ; and we 

 may reasonably suppose, that the smaller detritus wanders furthest 

 from its parent rock. There may, indeed, have been an influx of similar 

 material at the other end of the valley, but from its sparsely scattered 

 condition, and the minuteness of the fragments, of which it is here 

 composed, we feel rather disposed to ascribe to it a south-westerly than 

 a northern origin. 



As compared with these drifts, the Severn Channel is of modern 

 formation, for we see at this point that its bed is worn through them and 

 their underlying gravels, a circumstance, which the want of coherence, and 

 difference in the rock materials here in juxtaposition, must have much 

 favoured. 



