THE NATURALIST 
YOL. V., NO. XXXIV.—JULY, 1839. 
LOCAL OCCURRENCES IN NATURAL HISTORY; 
Principally relating to the Banks of the Severn, and the Western 
District of Worcestershire. 
In Letters to Neville Wood , Esq. 
By Edwin Lees, F.L.S., &c. 
Letter II. 
(Continued from Vol. IV., p. 57.) 
« The geologist will deem it incumbent upon him to examine with minute attention all the 
changes now in progress on the earth, and will regard every fact collected respecting the causes 
in diurnal action, as affording him a key to the interpretation of some mystery in the archives of 
remote ages.”— Lyell’s Principles of Geology , Vol. I.. p. 242. 
My dear Sir, —In my preceding letter I alluded to the fossil bones which 
occur in several spots in this district, mixed up with the beds of diluvial gravel— 
or “ drift” as more recently termed—which occupy a considerable extent of surface, 
and on the Southern side of Stourport, not far removed from the Severn, exist in 
connection with a range of Sand-hills, extending for some miles in a North-Easterly 
direction. This spot—named Mitton Common, 44 and forming part of what was 
once, previous to a local enclosure act, a far more extended waste—has so strange 
an appearance, isolated as it is in the midst of a fertile tract of country, that one 
can scarcely resist the conclusion that it is a relic of an ancient sea-beach, once 
extending its desolate aspect far and wide around. It is one entire waste of Sand, 
varied only by bog and pool, and (before the Summer heat absorbed them up) the 
few plants that vegetate in such an habitat—as Air a canescens, Nardus stricta , 
Juncus squarrosus , Gnaphalium minimum , Trifolium arvense , and Plantago 
coronopus. In the gravel-beds excavated at this spot, numerous zoophytic 
* It was formerly part of Hartlebury Common, and is occasionally so called now, but in fact 
lies adjacent to Lower Mitton. It is rather curious that the Act of Enclosure directs that this part 
of the Common to which I allude, shall never be enclosed. 
VOL. V.—NO. XXXIV. 
B 
