VOL. XIV.(3) | THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS 189 
Mr Lucy’ adduces further evidence for the former 
presence of the sea in the lower Severn valley. He states 
that his “lower” river-gravels, “rest upon an even sur- 
face” of Lias, and he infers that “there is no agent which 
will give an uninterrupted level except the sea.” I find 
myself unable to accept this “even surface” as a fact. It 
certainly does not exist in the Cheltenham district, as may 
be seen in the railway cuttings between Charlton Kings 
and Leckhampton. At Charlton Kings there are extensive 
deposits of sand and gravel, with no base seen; but, as 
we pass along the cutting, we observe the Lias to emerge, 
and before we reach Leckhampton, we find it rapidly 
sloping upward. The surface of the Lias in this locality 
is therefore not level, and could not have been produced 
by wave-action. Again, at Charlton Kings, oolitic gravels 
rest upon a surface of Lias at 250 feet above sea-level. 
while at Gloucester the Lias supporting the gravels has 
descended to less than 50 feet. On the opposite side of 
the valley, the rock-surface on which gravels are resting 
also slopes towards the river; gravels at Highnam being 
about 50 feet above the sea, at Lassington about 150 feet, 
and on Limbury Hill the height is nearly 230 feet. Thus 
the valley-surfaces sloped down towards the Severn before 
the deposition of the gravels, just as they do now, and we 
may reasonably conclude that the denuding agent which 
produced such surfaces was not the sea, but the river. 
Evidence supposed to be confirmatory of Murchison’s 
theory of a marine occupation of the lower Severn valley 
was adduced by Prof. James Buckman. His extensive 
knowledge of botany enabled him to work out an ingenious 
argument. He noticed that, in the region of the alleged 
Straits of Malvern, there were many plants whose natural 
habitat is the vicinity of the sea. Prominent amongst these 
1 Loc. cit., p. 112. 
