Page:VCH Worcestershire 1.djvu/56

 From what has already been said, it may be inferred that the broad vale forming great part of Worcestershire, which lies between the Malvern and Abberley Hills on the west, the Lickey Hills on the north, and the Cotteswold Hills on the south, has been excavated during Tertiary and subsequent times. We cannot say whether or not any of the Lower Tertiary (Eocene) strata ever extended over the region; but we may feel confident that since Eocene times the area has more generally been subject to waste by rain and rivers. The Oligocene and Miocene periods were times of warmth and, perhaps, of tropical rains; while in the Glacial period the scenes had changed to intense cold, with local floods, due to the melting of glacial ice. These changes were gradually brought about during the intervening Pliocene epoch, when the climate was temperate. The material derived from the waste of the Red rocks. Lias and Oolites, in the vale has been mostly borne away to other regions, and the only relics are the scattered Drifts to which we have called attention.