IT. THE COTS WOLDS. 15 



Severn Sea, under the influence of a strong ' south-wester/ such 

 as now assaults the cliffs of Ilfracombe, we find ourselves on the 

 edge of a vast inclined surface, undulated by many winding hollows, 

 among hills continually sinking lower and lower towards the south- 

 east. The westward cliffs, which we have described, are on the 

 whole very woody ; thick forests of beech suggesting a doubt whether 

 Caesar spoke from sure knowledge when he denied to Britain the 

 beech and the fir b . The valleys in the Cotswold country are 

 partially wooded, but the hills were, for the most part, originally 

 grassy sheep-feeding surfaces,, with no natural wood. The plough 

 has broken up the green carpet, and rectangular plantations have 

 further injured the natural beauty of the ' wold/ 



The streams which diversify the surface of these dry hills follow 

 generally the slope of the strata ; not very exactly, however, because 

 of many small faults in different directions, and the variously directed 

 lines of weakness which these and the jointing of the rocks occasion. 

 The upper extremities of the longer valleys usually die out ob- 

 scurely in branching hollows on the dry surface of the inferior 

 oolite ; strong springs are found issuing at some distance down the 

 valley. These are sometimes thrown out by faults. 



A few of these valleys are continued across the summits of the 

 Cotswolds so as to meet hollows on the western side. Such occur 

 at the sources of the Churn and the Coin : in the former case a 

 double connection of this sort may be traced northwards and west- 

 wards from the Seven Wells. In the latter case the same thing 

 occurs, in a very striking manner, at Andover's Ford, from which 

 two hollows proceed, one westward by a low pass to the Chelt, 

 the other northward over a higher 'col' to the Winchcombe 

 brook. 



On a greater scale the whole oolitic range is cut through, and 

 a large gap left at the source of the Evenlode, in a broad expanse 

 of lias. A curious low summit is formed between this river and the 

 Windrush, across the ridge of Stow and Iccomb, between Bourton- 

 on- the -Water and Addlestrop, which seems not explicable by 



b ' Materise cuj usque generis, ut in Gallia, est, praeter fagum et abietem.' Bell. 

 Gall. v. 12. This passage, strangely enough, would justify our regarding the chest- 

 nut as British. Abies ' probably refers to the silver-fir, well known to Caesar, not 

 the Scotch-fir, which he, perhaps, never saw. 



