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 Westbury 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, ail 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, Dumbleton 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. For 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 Vale of Gloucester, with its fine breadth of corn-land, its varied 
scenery, and comfortable well-to-do looking farm homesteads. "VVe 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 Cotteswoldians, 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 we 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 
