LOCAL OCCURRENCES IN NATURAL HISTORY. 
9 
conceive that long after the desiccation of the marine surface, the country might 
exist in an intermediate state, with broad rivers, strings of lakes, expansive 
meres, and marshes and morasses comparatively dry in Summer, and again sub¬ 
merged as autumnal rains or very high tides occasionally exerted their influence. 
I have noticed, in a few spots dispersed among black bog earth, as at Grimley, 
three miles North of Worcester, a gravelly Silt of a silicious kind, which seems 
to indicate the former existence of large pieces of fresh water in the localities 
where it occurs. That bogs have remained for a long period in these spots 
posterior to the partial drying up of the meres, is very evident; and the Mole in 
the present day points them out in sable trains and hillocks. I have also seen 
specimens of rounded Flints from the parish of Ombersley, seven miles North of 
Worcester, which were said to be widely dispersed over a field there, and are 
probably to be referred to a similar origin; for a friend who was well acquainted 
with the spot, informs me that thirty years ago, previous to the enclosures, the 
vicinity of Ombersley abounded in boggy spots and isolated pools, swarming with 
uliginose plants, now entirely eradicated. Indeed the ancient state of this tract 
of country must have been that of a marshy district but little elevated above the 
level of the ocean, to whose inroads, probably, it was at intervals subjected from 
high Spring-tides, while its waste surface was dotted with spreading lagoons. 
Even now, the Lorigdon and Eldersfield Marshes in the vicinity of Upton-on~ 
Severn, exhibit spreads of water in the autumnal and Spring seasons, for which 
the low level of the land affords no adequate drainage, their intersecting pools and 
ditches fringed with Hippuris vulgaris and Scirpus maritimus. That great part 
of Worcestershire was at one time in a similar state, appears from the relics of 
extensive bogs that yet remain, as Feckenham Bog, East of Droitwich, where 
Mr. Purton found the marine plants Sckcenus nigricans and Cladium mariscus .* 
The demesne and grounds at Croome, the residence of the Earl of Coventry, now 
celebrated for its gardens and arboretum, appear to have exhibited an analogous 
aspect to these bogs about a century ago; for Mr. Darke, in the first Agricul¬ 
tural Survey, published in 1794, says that, half a century previously, that part 
of the country was nothing but “ a morass.”f Every old rustic one meets with, 
is still full of fearful tales of that a Hobbimy’s Lantern,” or Ignis Fatuus , which 
in his youthful days was such a fertile source of terror and annoyance, leading 
the bewildered and benighted wanderer far away from his known course, and at 
last, perhaps, after a long chace, plunging him knee-deep in water, comfortably 
fixed in palpable darkness in some muddy morass. This species of “ march of 
head of water was three feet in altitude on the 15th of April last, and nearly overwhelmed a lady 
of my acquaintance, who was standing on the brink of the river, unconscious of any danger. 
* Purton’s Midland Flora , in loc. + Pitt’s Agric, Survey of Worcester, 
VOL. V.—NO. XXXIV. C 
