94 
ILLUSTRATIONS OF 
mend to the attention of the Society the numerous 
pits of gravel, sand, and clay which abound in the 
county, not doubting that many valuable relics may 
thus be rescued from the workmen, who unless 
taught otherwise will still continue to throw them 
aside as worthless and unprofitable.^ 
Connected with the great plain of red sandstone, 
and greatly productive of wealth to the county, is the 
bed of rock salt extending beneath it, and the brine 
springs in connection with it. The prevailing rock 
around Droitwich, where the salt works have been 
for many years situated, is a fine-grained calcareo- 
argillaceous sandstone, beneath which strata of marl 
and gypsum alternate, till the brine is met with, at a 
considerable distance below the surface, flowing over 
a bed of rock salt which has not hitherto been pene- 
trated. About three miles from Droitwich, at Stoke 
Prior, similar works have lately been established, and 
several articles of commerce, as soap, barilla, bicar- 
bonate of soda, and salt are produced. 
It is not improbable that the whole of the plain of 
Worcestershire was in ancient times the bed of the 
sea, while the various hills that now appear, formed 
the basis of rocks rising out of that primitive ocean. 
The red marl is generally stated by geologists to be 
formed from the ruins or debris of older rocks^ but 
* We have also in our Museum a most magnificent and perfect tusk of the 
Elephas primigeniuSf weighing nearly 40 pounds, and some bones of the Siberian 
rhinoceros, which were found in 1815 in a bed of diluvial gravel at Little Lawford, 
Warwickshire, and recently presented to us by the kindness of John Walcot, Esq., 
a devoted friend to this branch of science. 
