Natural History of the District.
The soil, the produce, and the surface of the country immediately surrounding Stourport, vary very considerably. Within a few miles every variety of secondary formation is met with. The hills, or, rather, the high grounds, which bound the valley of the Severn upon the south, are generally covered with coppice, but timber trees are few in number; oak and ash are the most prevailing kinds of wood; they are generally cut down once in about fourteen years, and are sold for hop-poles and crate-wood, the refuse being burnt into charcoal.
The hills, in this immediate neighbourhood, are sandstone; the level grounds, except where the soil is alluvial, are a bed of sand from twenty to thirty feet deep, then sandstone, and afterwards gravel. Before the country was enclosed, it appears to have been drifting sand for miles round. At the distance of four miles, near Abberley Hills, the sandstone disappears, and limestone succeeds in its stead. When this formation is first met with, it is very soft and impure, and contains very few petrifactions, but, at the distance of eight miles, in the parishes of Witley and Martley, the stone is much harder, and the number of petrifactions much greater. On the south side of the hills, and in the dips between them, the surface is a strong clay, and, at different depths, coal is very generally met with. The coal formation, in some places, commences within a few feet of the surface, but it inclines so much, that the shafts are frequently from twenty-five to thirty yards deep. After the blue clay is cut through, sandstone appears,
