permitted to converse; and here also was the warm-room, kitchen, and
lavatory. On the same side are remains of a string of offices for
novices, and for scribes employed in multiplying copies of the Scriptures
and other books.

[Buildwas Abbey: 34.jpg]

Our engraving represents the church as seen by moonlight, when strong
lights and shadows bring to mind the well-known lines of Sir Walter
Scott:--

"If thou wouldst view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight.
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild but to flout the ruins gray:
When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruin'd central tower;
When buttress and buttress alternately
Seem framed of ebon and ivory."

The traveller by the Severn Valley Railway can scarcely fail to notice
here, and at other points along the line, beds of sand and gravel at
levels above the highest points now reached by the river; wave-like
sweeps of water-worn materials still higher up are no less conspicuous.
In both these are found the _Turritella terebra_, and other shells of
modern seas, identifying them with the period when a marine strait
extended the whole distance from the Dee to the Bristol Channel. The
cutting near Coalbrookdale has yielded a rich harvest of these marine