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who, strange as it may seem, profess acumen sufficient to see through 

 a stone wall I But as, according to the dictum of the poet, there 

 never was a faultless piece, so the slips of geology may be deemed 

 but venial, since the level surface of the earth is thus modified, and a 

 wilderness of beauty is formed out of a chaos of debris. Such is the 

 case about Knightsford and Ankerdine ; and this country the lovers 

 of Nature were now about to explore. After some preliminary busi- 

 ness, under the Presidency of the Rev. W. S. Symonds, Rector of 

 Pendock, the exploration commenced, under the direction of Mr. E. 

 Lees, F.L.S., who had formerly the advantage of going over the 

 same ground with Dr. Buckland, Rosebury Rock, on the southern 

 bank of the Terae, was first visited ; and on the way to it a remark- 

 able spot was examined : where the Silurian ridge, in its progress 

 from Suckley, suddenly terminates, a great fault throws the new red 

 sandstone unconformably against the old red ; and, a denuding or 

 displacing force having at an early date swept away the divided Silu- 

 rian beds, the Teme at present glides through a channel that origi- 

 nally admitted a current of the primaeval sea. The verge of Rosebury 

 Cliff, 378 feet in altitude by the trigonometrical survey, was now 

 approached, and the word given to descend its almost perpendicular 

 face, which was at length safely effected. As a picturesque object, 

 Rosebury forms a beautifully wooded mass, shadowing the rapid 

 Teme that bathes its base. In its cool, shadowy recesses Scolopen- 

 drium, Polypodium, and other ferns, grow much more luxuriantly than 

 usual ; and it may be searched with advantage for mosses and the 

 Cryptogamia. The rarer plants now gathered were Cotyledon Umbi- 

 licus, Teesdalia nudicaulis (very fine), Potentilla argentea, and Cam- 

 panula Trachelium. Poetical wanderers may be interested in knowing 

 that this rock was a favourite haunt of the fairies ; and in the lane 

 near it is a large old maple-tree, called Bate's Bush : the said maple 

 growing, as traditionally stated, from a stake driven through the body 

 of a poor suicide ; and in connexion with which Mr. Allies, in his 

 ' Antiquities and Folk-lore of Worcestershire,' has recorded a most 

 horrible tale of " something like a black pig," and " a man without a 

 head," seen there by credible observers, of course at the witching 

 hour of night ! 



The declining autumnal season lessened the number of plants gene- 

 rally gathered by the botanists of the party ; but it may be noticed as 

 a pretty feature that the crest of the hill was purple with the flowery 

 ling iCalluna vulgaris) ; while the bushes on the margin of the 

 woods were prettily wreathed with the virgin's bower {Clematis 



