took seats respectively in their carriages, some to Great Malvern, thence by rail to Hereford and elsewhere; the contingent from the northern parts of the county returned home in the carriages viâ Leominster.

The party, fifty-eight in number, was composed of the President, Mr. W. Henry Barneby; Vice-President, Rev. Sir George H. Cornewall, Bart., Sir Richard Harington, Bart., who to-day was elected a member; the following members: His Honour Judge Ingham, His Honour Judge Lea, Revs. G. E. Ashley, T. M. Beavan, J. O. Bevan, H. Bennett, C. Black, W. K. Brodribb, C. Burrough, A. J. Capel, Wm. Elliot, E. R. Firmstone, J. E. Grasett, E. J. Holloway, W. Ireland, T. S. Lea, W. H. Lambert, H. B. D. Marshall, D. Seaton, and M. G. Watkins; Dr. Paul Chapman, Messrs. C. D. Andrews, W. Bankes, R. Clarke, G. Cresswell, James Davies, C. Fortey, G. H. Hadfield, W. Hebb, W. J. Humfrys, P. Levason, J. W. Lloyd, T. C. Paris, W. Pilley, G. H. Piper, A. J. Purchas, O. Shellard, H. G. Sugden, J. P. Sugden, H. Southall, H. A. Wadworth, and H. C. Moore, Honorary Secretary; and the following visitors: Revs. J. Charlesworth, J. H. Lambert, and A. W. Tudball, and Messrs. E. J. Baker, W. T. Carless, Wm. Davis, James Nott, and James Trevor Trevor.

The following extract from a paper by the late Sir Roderick Murchison, Vice-President Geological Society, is taken from Proceedings of the Geological Society of London, No. 36, Vol. II., page 78, 1833—1834.

"Two remarkable cases of a modern Travertine five and eight miles East of Tenbury are then cited, the one near the Spouthouse Farm, the other the Southstone Rock, both of which have been accumulated in narrow dells which intersect transversely promontories of the Old Red Sandstone. At the former the Travertine is associated with much sandy marl. The latter is a cavernous rock of about 50 feet in height, and has a superficies of more than a quarter of an acre, having on its surface a small house and garden. In both cases the Travertine incloses Helices of existing species, and has been occasionally quarried for purposes of building and burning to lime.

"These modern rocks are shown to have been formed by small springs which issue from the Calcareous or Cornstone strata of Old Red Sandstone, and still encrust the leaves and grasses over which they flow, a process which the author (judging from the size of the rocks produced) supposes to have been in undisturbed action during the whole period of history."

THE PHYSIOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF THE

DINGLE OF SAPEY BROOK.

By the Rev. T. S. LEA.

A paper on the Travertine of Southstone Rock and elsewhere has already been read before this Club by Sir George H. Cornewall. Under these circumstances there is not much more to be said to-day on that subject, unless indeed I call the attention of the Club to two other calcareous mosses, Eucladium verticillatum, which occupies a somewhat drier region of the rock than Hypnum commutatum; and Hypnum falcatum, possibly its variety virescens, which may be noted in the stream itself. I propose therefore to deal with the soil and rock of the region which we shall traverse, especially with that part of the country which lies eastward of the Bromyard and Stanford road, and west of the Teme; and I intend to be somewhat speculative, knowing that I write for men whose scientific habits of thought will enable them to distinguish at once between what I ask them to recognise as fact, and what I put forward as theory and hypothesis.

The aspect of the country I have indicated will at once suggest to the most moderately-experienced eye that it is a table-land broken up by water-worn valleys of the most obvious type. And on examination the strata of limestone gravel and sandstone rock will be seen to be perfectly level. The formation is that of the Old Red Sandstone of Herefordshire, but I would point out that on crossing the Bromyard and Stanford road the drainage is that of the Teme and Severn, and not that of the Frome and Wye. The fall is more rapid and the valleys are deeper. But the table-land ends abruptly in a hill which is steep enough to have given a name to Clifton-upon-Teme, and though the red soil may be seen on the other side, the higher hills are Wenlock limestone, strongly inclined upon a ridge which is clearly a continuation of the Malvern chain in the direction of the Clee Hills. The cuttings on the Bromyard Railway show the strata of the Old Red Sandstone inclined against the western side of that range, and a quarry on the Ridge Hill, near Martley, shows the limestone inclined against its eastern side. I think I shall be able to show that the position of the Teme Valley has been determined by this range, and that the inclined rocks of the Old Red Sandstone have perished from causes that will be apparent to those who are here to-day.

The key to the geological situation is to be found at Knightwick, where the Teme breaks through the limestone at a place where, for once in a way, the New Red Sandstone appears on the western side of the range. It may be that a break occurs here in the direct course of the line of upheaval, as the position of the Suckley Hills might indicate; but the cuttings at Knightwick show :-(1) the Old Red Sandstone inclined against the eastern side of the range, (2) a block of limestone, (3) a mass of New Red Sandstone, (4) a vertical bed of grey clay (which gave the engineers some trouble by slipping), (5) the Old Red Sandstone, vertical

at first and afterwards inclined at a less angle against the western side of the range. Now, if the limestone of the range was here at its lowest, as it seems to be in fact, the drainage of this country would find its way eastwards at that point. The Cradley Brook, after a northerly course from Colwall, finds its way through the range at a point a little to the south, and the watershed of that stream and the Teme, which affords a gradient for the Bromyard Railway, contains also the inclined strata of the Old Red Sandstone, which elsewhere have disappeared along the whole stretch of valley from Malvern to Stanford. Both the Cradley Brook and the Teme have taken a course which causes them to divide the two formations. Westward are the level strata of the Old Red Sandstone. Eastward lies this continuation of the Malvern Range. This is not accidental, and is due to the nature of the limestone gravel. Hard as its interbedded rock when in situ, it rapidly breaks up when exposed to the weather, so rapidly that vegetation can hardly establish itself on a bank where that gravel is exposed. Witness the cuttings on the Bromyard line, now nearly fifteen years old, and almost as bare as when first made. The frost splits up the soil, which falls in angular fragments as a sort of talus until the rain can convert it into mud. Even the sides of a cart road are liable to this form of denudation, and the outflow of a field drain will often create a considerable gully. When the limestone gravel is thus worn away the harder sandstone overhangs and finally falls, and this process goes on at the sides of every dingle until a slope is attained which is sufficiently gentle to support soil and vegetation. When this is reached there is still the tendency of the brook to undermine its banks in the usual way, and thus the valley becomes gradually wider, until a point is reached at which the denudation is not perceptibly greater than the average of the district. But meanwhile the dingle is being worked out backwards, until either so great a height is reached that the slope becomes too gentle to form a stream, or the dingle itself so nearly approaches the water-shed that there is no collecting ground behind it. Completed dingles, (if I may use the expression), of both these kinds may be met with, but there are others which must eventually become far deeper than they are at present. In fact this earlier process of valley-making is not yet at an end in the valley of Sapey Brook. I could point to instances where agricultural drainage has actually started afresh the work of excavation, after its natural term had been reached, but my impression is that the valley of Sapey Brook has deepened at a rate which must be geologically regarded as extremely rapid, and I attribute this rapidity to the exceptionally easy work which the Teme has had in destroying the inclined beds of Old Red Sandstone. For, once let the edges of such strata as the limestone gravel be exposed to such a scour as the bed of a rapid stream would make, they must give way rapidly, and carry with them the harder rock as well. Such a scour would open the mouth of Sapey Brook and deepen the dingles. And if it be possible to show that any check or choke in the valley existed, such as there may well have been at Knightwick, if this were overcome at all suddenly, the deepening of the valley might have been very rapid. There is near Clifton-on-Teme a bed of river gravel (as I opine) at about 200 feet above the present meadow level. It contains rounded pebbles, and, apparently, peaty matter. Some of these pebbles are, I think, decomposed Dhu

stone. Anyhow, they have been there for some time. When the Teme was there, there must have been a large quantity of inclined sandstone to the east, and this must have slipped into the valley as the stream got under its lower edges. Thus, either the time must have been enormously long or the denudation exceedingly rapid at some period. For, a river running through meadows can scarcely lower its valley more than a few inches in the century, and that is exceptional. At least this is clear, that the bulk of the Teme valley area at the spot lies to the east, the western bank, with the gravel on it, being very much steeper.

But as a set-off to this, the amount of solid matter carried down the streams in solution must be noted. A sample of the water of Sapey Brook, taken April 11th, 1892, after a fortnight's drought, yielded 142 grains per cubic foot, or 22.82 grains per gallon. That is to say, that in every ton of water there is three-quarters of a pound of solid, exclusive of suspended matter. This proportion would

probably be less after heavy rain, but some idea of the amount of solid transported in this way may be gathered from the following simple calculation :-At this rate, a brook carrying an average of two tons of water a minute in dry weather will take some 356 tons of soluble solids to the sea in the course of a year. That, at the rate of 14 cubic feet to a ton of chalk, is about 5,000 cubic feet. Two tons a minute may be a very low estimate for Sapey Brook, but I have no means of measuring the volume of water. We have, however, a large amount of denudation going on within the hills, which must tend to lower them by bringing their substance away in the waters of calcareous springs.

I now come to the nature of the soil itself, its present condition, and its possible origin. From an analysis made for me by Mr. William Ray, F.C.S., F.I.C., &c., Science Master at the Kidderminster and District School of Science and Art, I have, besides what I have already quoted, the following results:(1) Sample of sandstone, 5'4% soluble; (2) sample of limestone gravel, 65.8% soluble. The insoluble residue of (1) consists apparently chiefly of quartz coloured with iron. The insoluble residue of (2) consists of precisely the same materials, though the size of the individual grains is smaller, and the proportion of minute grains much higher than in (1). My microscope shows that the two deposits have a common origin, and only differ in mode of deposition. In estimating the age, and speculating on the origin, of such a massive formation as the Old Red Sandstone, one might be tempted to rely on fossils. Unfortunately for this method, there are (in this district at least) no fossils, and the soil seems peculiarly destructive of everything organic. For instance, when a new grave is dug in Tedstone Delamere Churchyard, very little is ever found to indicate previous interments except the iron coffin-handles. But even if this were not so, one could not expect any very large deposit of fossils, unless one was prepared to assign an enormously prolonged period for the deposition of the matrix which embedded them.

We must bear in mind that we are now warned that the period which can be allowed for the deposition of the whole series of sedimentary rocks is limited, and I think it possible that in this Old Red Sandstone we may have an example of how a huge thickness of strata may have been laid down during a comparatively

brief period. For I have seen the process which I intend to describe, and know that the results are similar to what is now beneath our feet. But first, the facts which led me to my guess. The rounded appearance of the larger grains of the insoluble residue of the rock suggested blown sand. The level stratification demands water. But the occurrence of beds of highly calcareous sand in nodular lumps, alternating with a nearly pure sandstone, does not look either like a shore deposit or a delta, and is certainly not pelagic. But I have seen the barren peaks of the Flinders Range wasting beneath the strong winds and hot sun of a South Australian summer. I have seen the storms of dust and sand sweep across the huge saltpans, where the water of creeks which never reach the sea deposits its soluble solids. I have seen how a saltpan can fill up and become like the surrounding plain, and I have little doubt that East and West Australia have been connected into one continent chiefly by this means. The soil there reminded me of The lime and sand are both there, and the same red colour. Can this have been the former state of Herefordshire? Possibly, perhaps probably. For the existence of salt deposits in England shows that once at least a dry climate prevailed. Nor is it unlikely that in days of warm polar regions the desert zones which now lie north of the tropic of Cancer and south of the tropic of Capricorn, may have extended into more northerly and southerly latitudes. At any rate, if I venture to attribute the formation of the limestone gravel to evaporating lakes receiving a certain proportion of sand and especially fine dust, while referring the sandstone either to parts near the margins of such pans, or to later epochs in the process of filling up which they undergo, I shall be able to justify myself by saying that I am arguing from the known to the unknown, from the effect to the cause, by a legitimate method of induction.

ours.

The Rev. J. D. La Touche much regretted his unavoidable absence, and his being unable to listen to Mr. Lea's paper. Having, however, since that date, heard something of Mr. Lea's observations, he remarks that in his ignorance of the geology of the locality alluded to, he is unable to offer any useful criticism, and can only say in a general way that it appears to him very difficult to show that the changes referred to did not occupy an enormous lapse of time. Mr. Lea has to account, not only for the time taken up in deposition of strata, but for that consumed in their upheaval, and after that, in their denudation.

Continuing, Mr. La Touche says: The quantity of matter carried down by rivers both in solution and (as shown by my observations on the Onny) in suspension, is indeed enormous, and, fixing attention on this fact, we are apt greatly to exaggerate the rapidity with which deposits would be formed; yet if we remember that it is estimated, on a very moderate average, that 40,000 millions of cubic feet of mud are carried annually into the Bay of Bengal by the Ganges, and consider the small effect it has annually in altering its depth, or affecting it in any way, I think we may well be slow in concluding that the comparative few tons of matter in solution spoken of by Mr. Lea is any indication that geological change has been