ili 
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. The men at the pits said that they frequently met 
with the bones of large animals, perhaps Elephant, Hippopotamus, 
Rhinoceros, and Deer, which were the inhabitants of these isles 
long ere Brutus, grandson of Aineas—as the unquestionable 
authority of Geoffry of Monmouth 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 Lophius piscatorius 
(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 Cinderford, through most interesting sec- 
tions of the Old Red Sandstone, Meuntain 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, tu the great danger 
both of machinery and human life. In this machine, when the 
truck 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— 
