74 
DECAY IN NATURE. 
April, 1892. 
craters ; then the fire-forces ceased to work, frost and rain set 
in motion the process of decay, the lofty cones dwindled 
away, and the waves of the Cambrian Sea swept over their 
worn foundations. The Cambrian epoch drew to an end ; 
and then volcanic energy broke out afresh, this time most 
actively in the region which is now North Wales, but extend¬ 
ing as far as the borders of Shropshire. Again, groups of 
lofty cones were formed, which spouted forth their showers of 
ashes and streams of molten lava. But again, the inexorable 
forces of decay began to work, and the new mountain systems 
vanished from the earth. Since that time, Shropshire and 
the Severn Valley have been free from volcanoes; but again 
and again has the surface of the land been carved out by 
atmospheric forces into mountain and valley, and the out¬ 
lines of the scenery have changed from age to age, as if the 
“ everlasting ” hills were but the “ baseless fabric of a vision.” 
The changes to which I have referred are, of course, very 
slow, reckoning by the units of time with which we measure 
the epochs of history. When Harry Hotspur, four and a 
half centuries ago, looked southward from the fatal field 
of Shrewsbury, his eye ranged over a landscape identical in 
all its solid features with that which we now behold. A 
thousand years further back, Britons, Romans, and Angles 
waded the very streams over which we now pass on bridges, 
and fought battles under the lulls where we moderns wield 
the geological hammer or collect rare plants. Even to the 
savage men who occupied this area on its last emergence 
from the sea, the outlines of the scenery were essentially the 
same as now. The rivers flowed more sluggishly, and here 
and there spread out into shallow meres, or soaked through 
morasses. The channels in which they ran have also since 
that time here and there grown more serpentine ; but the 
hills that bound their valleys have undergone no material 
change of shape. In the preceding epoch, during the great 
submergence of central Britain, our old familiar Wrekin, 
Caer Caradoc, Longn^nd, the Stiper Stones, and the Clees, 
standing as islands in an archipelago, had assumed sub¬ 
stantially their present shape. It is when we carry our 
thoughts back to epochs compared with which this sub¬ 
mergence is an event of yesterday, that we are able to 
recognise the changeableness of even the most solid and 
durable elements in our scenery. 
Perhaps it will help us to comprehend more clearly the 
law of decay in Nature, if we reflect upon the rapidity with 
which monuments and buildings of stone perish when exposed 
to the weather. Have we a church or hall in England that 
has survived entire from Saxon times ? Even Norman and 
