228 PROCEEDINGS OE THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



Chepstow, it is on the top of the chff, high al)Ove the 

 river. Wherefore the division of the chff at Sedbury 

 Park from its opposite counterpart at Aust, has presum- 

 ably been accomphshed since the deposition of the 

 northern drift. 



The neighbourhood of Much Wcnlock and Buildwas is 

 famous for Silurian fossils, and in the course of our 

 descent to the Severn valley we passed several places 

 where they are obtainable in abundance. It was from 

 this district that George Maw ])rocured such a large series 

 for Thomas Davidson. The latter described to me how 

 Maw used to work. He w'ashed something like 1 1 tons 

 of the shale, and the debris, sorted out by sieves, was 

 spread on tables for women to look over, so that they 

 might pick out the fossils. By this means thousands of 

 si)ecimens were obtained, and all the Brachiopods were 

 sent to Davidson for the purposes of his monograph. 

 There were as many as 10,000 specimens of Ortliis biloba. 

 I asked Davidson how he accomplished the labour of 

 sorting, and with a chuckle he replied that he engaged the 

 services of some Brighton parsons for the rough sorting 

 of the species, " because they had nothing to do six days 

 in the week." 



We duly reached the inn at Buildwas, and while a meal 

 was being prepared we visited the famous Buildwas Abbey, 

 a fine Norman ruin. 



The next morning we proceeded down the Severn 

 valley to Coalbrookdale. It is a fine gorge, with steep, 

 well-wooded sides. In proportion to the stream it is 

 very much narrower than the valley in Gloucestershire, 

 and in any history of the development of the Severn 

 valley such noticeable differences of width would have to 

 be accounted for. If this Shropshire Severn was once a 

 Thames tributary, as suggested by an American, Prof. 



