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trouble you with the details of the sketch of the physiography 

 of the county, which I have prepared, since it is a subject 

 famihar to most of us, and I hope to have the personal aid of 

 some of our more eminent geological members in perfecting it. 

 Still I may remark that the county divides itself naturally into 

 four geological areas ; viz., (1) The trans-sabrine, or Western 

 Palaeozoic region of the Forest, (2) The Cis-sabrine, or Lower 

 Secondary region of the Yale of Gloucester, southward to 

 Tortworth and Wickwar, which is chiefly Liassic. (3) The 

 Bristol Coalfield, or Southern Palseozoic region, and (4) The 

 Eastern, Cotteswold, or Oolite region. These regions do not 

 readily admit of geological sub-division ; they are too large to 

 be taken as the ultimate botannical divisions; and the 

 occurrence of outliers and of masking masses of drift render 

 them unsuited scientifically for this purpose. 



It has been found that distinct Floras often characterise 

 neighbouring river-drainage areas. IsTor can we wonder at this 

 being the case, when we consider how readily plants can 

 disseminate themselves along the banks of a stream, or be 

 carried by the current, by floods or tide, and remember that 

 probably our smaller streams even have flowed along the same 

 course for at least 100,000 years. Taking then a hydrographic 

 basis for our division, we can, I find, readily divide our 1,250 

 square miles of area into twelve districts. The watershed 

 between the Thames and the Severn, part of the axial watershed 

 of Great Britain, gives us our first great boundary-line ; nine 

 districts lie west, and three east of it. Of the nine westerly 

 districts, three lie west of the Severn, one of them draining 

 into the Wye. The southern-most of the remaining six drains 

 immediately chiefly into the Bristol Avon and the northern-most 

 into the Stour and Warwickshire Avon. 



The districts are these : — 



I. The Chipping Camden, or Upper Warwickshire Avon and 

 Stour drainage-area, including all that part of the county lying 

 north of a line from the apex of the Broadway re-entering 

 angle, through Moreton-in-the-Marsh to the apex of a neigh- 

 bouring Warwickshu-e re-entering angle. 



