148 PROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB vol. xiii. (3) 



Proposals for the summer meetings were then discussed ; 

 and the formal arrangement of places and dates was left to 

 the Council. 



The following was their arrangement : — 



Thursday, June 1st. The Upper Coin Valley. 

 Monday, June 26th. [Salisbury ; a two days' excur- 

 Tuesday, June 27th. ) sion. 

 Wednesday, July 26th. Sodbury, for the cuttings on 



the new railway. 

 Tuesday, Sept. 19th. Lydney and Awre. 

 It was afterwards found necessary to make changes with 

 respect to the last meeting ; it was held at Coleford on 

 Thursday, Sept. 21st. 



There was a good attendance of members at the first 

 of the summer meetings, and an interesting day was spent 

 under the guidance of the Hon. Secretary, who conducted 

 the party over Sevenhampton Common, down the Seven- 

 hampton Valley, and to the village of Withington. The 

 special study of the excursion being that of geological 

 problems connected with the formation of the Severn 

 Valley, and of the valleys through and adjacent to the 

 Cotteswold escarpment, particular attention was paid to 

 the evidence afforded by the valleys themselves. 



The formation of the Severn Valley has hitherto been 

 generally regarded as the work of the river itself. The 

 western shore of the sea in which the Cotteswold rocks 

 were deposited was probably the Malvern chain and the 

 hills continuing from it through the Forest of Dean. It 

 has been supposed that when the Severn began to make 

 a channel it found a line of least resistance in the junction 

 of the soft rocks of the Cotteswolds and the hard rocks 

 of the Malverns, and that in process of time it widened 

 its bed by cutting away the rocks on the eastern side and 

 thus formed the Cotteswold cliffs. It has also been com- 

 monly believed that lateral valleys like the Dowdeswell 



