378 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



south, east and west of it lies work for the hammer. Hay Hill silurians, Forest 

 of Dean coal field, lias sections at Wainlode and West'bury of unsurpassable 

 interest, and that superb range of oolite that so aptly and euphoniously desig- 

 nates the club in question, the " Cotteswold." Silurian, Oolitic and Liassic 

 deposits, not mere patches, all stand within reach ; and, as an invitation from 

 Mr. A. Holland, M. P. for Eversham, had been accepted for the club to dine 

 at his mansion, Dumblet on House, it was considered that the Middle Lias would 

 form a " piece de resistance" with the " entrees" of Upper Lias. Nor was 

 this the whole of the bill of fare. It would be tedious and egotistical on our 

 part to intrude mere personal incidents ; sufficient is it to recount that, at starting, 

 early in the morning, one of fair promise, and all things looking " couleur de 

 rose" we reached the station in good time, but not the train. Por while in- 

 quiring for the right carriage, on one platform, like Professor Owen inquiring 

 for the right whale, we learned to our mortification that our train had just 

 glided off from the other platform, there being two stations at Gloucester. 

 Chewing the cud of disappointment for three long hours was penance enough, 

 and a degree worse than a Mediterranean lazarette. It came to an end at last. 

 Dejection ceased — a start about noon enlivened our torpidity, and we began to 

 look about us. Soon sped we, from Gloucester's fair tower " ye pride of 

 Glostyre and ye Westyrne lande," and rattled along the iron road. The Mid- 

 land rail from Gloucester passing Ashchurch a few miles beyond Cheltenham, 

 traverses the Yale of Gloucester, with its fine breadth of corn-land, its varied 

 scenery, and comfortable well-to-do looking farm homesteads.. We soon left 

 behind us Robin's Wood Hill, then neared Chosen Hill (so called in the ver- 

 nacular) a similar eminence but with a quaint little turretted church on the top, 

 perched amid trees, making one wonder how the parson gets up there, for we 

 could almost presume nobody else ever goes. Looking out of the carriage 

 window one could now readily fall in with the idea of Murchison as being no 

 fancy, that the Severn was once a strait of the sea, that Breda, Dumbledon and 

 Churchdown were islands, Leckhampton a lofty cliff, and the Cheltenham 

 gravel beds ancient shingle beaches. After a call at Cheltenham we got to 

 Ashchurch, and left the rail. Immediately outside the station, spoilt in effect by 

 its nearness, is a pretty ivy clad church. Our destination now was Dumbleton 

 Hill, one of the northern outliers of the Cotteswold region in the Yale of 

 Evesham. Through losing the morning train we had seven miles of ground to 

 get over before we could join the party. Setting off on foot, with a good will, 

 albeit somewhat damped in ardour by the thought that this now would only be 

 half a day with the Cotteswoldiaus, we took the turnpike-road along the 

 valley. A group of mills extended to the right, more or less clothed, some 

 with belts of larch, some with young ash coppice ; while, looming to the 

 left, lay Bredon Hill, dividing the vales of Gloucester and Evesham, and the 

 largest isolated hill in the district ; its outline sharp against the sky, forming 

 a gentle elliptical curve, and the base occupied by a cordon of farm-houses 

 embosomed in orchards. A well made road of Lias marlstone faced with 

 Bristol stone (i. e. carboniferous limestone) "gave us good walking, while 

 cottages of the true English character were dispersed along the roadside with 

 clumps of the homely hollyhock in dark puce or lemon coloured blooms, 

 screening, perhaps, a view of straw-capped beehives and with mostly a vigorous 

 well trained plum or apricot against the south end of the house, "betokening, 

 as vre thought, a kind and considerate landlord. We trust we are not wrong. 

 Travelling onward, certain stone-heaps arranged by the roadside, were examined; 

 the materials pronounced to be of Drift, and Pleistocene age, large pebbles 

 they were, oval, smooth and hard, breaking with schistous fracture, and show- 

 ing true crystalline structure. They seemed to be collected for road repair- 

 ing, but whence they were brought we did not ascertain, Piles of marlstone 



