

CHAPTEE II. 



HILLS AND VALES. 



WHAT may be called, in a limited sense, the natural district round 

 Oxford, extends as far as the branches of the upper Thames, and 

 these are all bounded by the high and almost continuous Cotswold 

 Hills of oolite, overlooking lias on the north and west, and by the 

 almost equally high cretaceous strata on the south and south-west. 

 Oxford, though not quite in the centre of the district, if we measure 

 by miles, is strictly so if considered in relation to physical geo- 

 graphy and geological structure. Toward this city the greater 

 number of the rivers gravitate ; through it is the shortest line of 

 section from the lias to the chalk ; near it is the greatest variety 

 of strata, and some strata occur here which are nowhere else so 

 well shown in England. Pre-eminently rich in organic remains 

 as are the ancient strata near Oxford, not less striking are the facts 

 now ascertained concerning the condition of its surface in later 

 geological times, and the perished races of quadrupeds which 

 accompanied the mammoth in his wanderings over hills and dales 

 now vocal with sheep and oxen. 



In a larger sense, the district which is open to the Oxford student 

 may include the whole range of the chalk from Wiltshire to Bed- 

 fordshire, with the river Kennet, and the vale of the Severn, with 

 the picturesque chain of Malvern. The geological map, Plate I, 

 has been constructed to include the district considered in this large 

 sense. It is not a little in favour of the study of Geology at 

 Oxford, that parallel to the igneous and metamorphic chain of 

 Malvern, are the richly fossil iferous strata of Silurian age, and a 



