GEOLOGY OF WYRE FOREST. 
83 
heavier trunks and branches sank down with the coarser sand which 
would be first deposited, while the finer mud with the leaves and 
twigs would sink down more slowly and in thin layers. The only 
other remains I have found there are a few fossil fruits and some fish 
scales. 
The brook, at a place just above Cooper’s Mill, shows a fine 
illustration of the lateral change which river beds are constantly 
undergoing. At this spot the brook is eating away the bank at a rapid 
rate—so fast, in fact, that though a wall was built seven years ago 
to resist its action, it has broken it down and advanced beyond it for 
several feet. On the other side of the stream, and about eight feet 
from its present bed, is a cliff, at the base of which the current ran in 
the memory of the parents of the present inhabitants. 
There is another curious fact concerning it which I think is worth 
relating. What called my attention to this place was some nodules 
of haematite or red oxide of iron, which I saw in one of the cottages, 
and which I was told were dug out of the ground. Naturally, I wanted 
immediately to see the place where this mineral came from, and 
found that the nodules formed a layer in the bank of the stream, and 
also that with them were a number of rounded fragments of slag. The 
question at once arose. How came these waterworn remains of 
human industry into the bed of Dowles Brook ? I found out, after 
some inquiries, that there formerly existed some blast furnaces about 
two miles higher up the brook, though they have not been worked, 
1 was told, for a century or more. There is a corn-mill there now, 
called Furnace Mill, and I believe some few traces of the ancient 
\yorks still exist, though unfortunately I was not able to visit the 
jfiace myself. But here, several miles down the stream, the fragments 
of slag were brought and deposited by the current. Slowly the bed of 
the stream moved to the other side of the valley, and a verdant 
meadow sprung up on the newly-made land. Now, the course of the 
stream is swinging back again and wearing away the beds which 
it formerly deposited, most likely to carry this slag and iron farther 
down the stream, where in years to come the remains of the ancient 
iron-works will be found long after its traces have disappeared on the 
spot where they originally stood. 
I might mention that coal was searched for near Dowles 
Brook about five years ago, and a boring 1,200 feet deep was made; but 
the result was unsatisfactory, though coal was found. Water has 
filled the bore from below, and approaches to near the surface, but is 
as salt as brine. It is not usual, I think, to find salt rocks in the Coal 
Measures, though other mineral springs occur in the neighbourhood. 
In the Chamberlain Wood, which forms a part of the Forest between 
Dowles Brook and Aiiey, is a spring called Stinking Ditch, which is so 
impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen that it may be smelt a 
hundred vards awav. 
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