—_-*” 
5 
Cotteswolds, and telling how at one time these hills extended 
so much farther across the Vale than they do now. Here, 
then, was a demonstration of three primary elementary facts 
in geology—viz., that igneous rocks (or fire), aqueous rocks (or 
water), and atmospheric action (or erosion), have been the 
powerful agents that have produced this scene. 
The Valley likewise (as pointed out by the lecturer) is covered 
by extensive beds of sand and gravel, which have been trans- 
ported by water from a distance, and this gravel tells us of 
other times and other conditions, another climate, and other 
lands, for in these gravel beds are found the remains of species 
of quadrupeds which no longer exist, and belonging to genera 
that now live in tropical regions; for in these gravels have 
been discovered teeth and tusks of the fossil elephant, the 
teeth of rhinoceros, the jaws and tusks of hippopotamus, with 
bones of deer, oxen, and other mammalian associates. 
When we examine attentively the hard rocks of the Malvern 
side of the Valley, we have unmistakeable evidence that the 
great ice sheet which once enveloped so much of the British 
Islands carried its graver over these rocks, and smoothed, 
scratched, and polished them, as it has done in other regions, 
and that much of the rounded outlines which the Cotteswolds 
now present was due to the movement of the same ice sheet 
which covered them during the glacial epoch, carrying its 
eraving tools over their summits and rounding them as it 
moved slowly away towards the estuary of the Severn. 
“These,” said the learned Doctor, “are some of the more 
salient points which the physiography of the Valley presents 
when studied in a general view from our present stand-point.” 
Before taking their walk round the hill, Dr. Wrieur pointed 
out the structure of the Cotteswolds. “They had seen how 
much of these hills was composed of the Lias formation, which 
is divided into lower, middle, and upper beds. Now each of 
these divisions was again made up of subordinate beds, charac- 
terized by the forms of living organisms which had left their 
remains in the bed of the sea in which they existed during the 
liassic age. Singular forms of reptiles, and chambered shells 
