1857.] on the Malvern Hills, 391 



earlier periods of time.* Perhaps no geological phenomenon is more 

 certain or more significant of the true condition of the earth's mass 

 than this repeated upward and downward movement of the erust in 

 one region — this contemporaneous rising of one tract, and sinking 

 of another not far removed — this wasting of one palaeozoic shore, 

 while another neighbouring palaepzoic basin was receiving addi- 

 tional sediments. Dry and elevated, while to the northward and 

 southward the sea was rich with the thousands of organic forms 

 of the carboniferous sera, the ridges of Malvern appear to have 

 never since been^ covered by the deposits from water, and may 

 thus claim to be regarded as a tract of the most ancient land in 

 Britain, composed of some of its oldest strata, resting on one of the 

 oldest of its pyrogenous formations. 



The very limited beds of coal in the Abberley hills are covered 

 by a remarkable deposit of the Permian age, full of large and 

 small masses of rock, derived partly from the neighbouring hills, 

 and partly from points at a greater distance, — a conglomerate or a 

 breccia, according as the fragments are rolled, subangular, or 

 angular. The course taken by these fragments appears to be from 

 the northward ; under the influence of littoral currents they have 

 been drifted southward ; the farther to the south (as at Haffield), 

 the more rolled are the masses, the more conglomeritic the rock. 

 Examined in the Abberley hills, the masses seem to require the 

 operation of some moving agency different from the ordinary trans- 

 porting power of water — a cataclysmal action, consequent on violent 

 movement of the sea bed or shore, or, as suggested by Professor 

 Ramsay, icebergs, loaded with glacial detritus from primeval hills 

 like the Longmynd. In support of this last view, fragments with 

 striated surfaces are produced, resembling those which are usually 

 accepted as evidence of glacial deposits. 



Thus a somewhat new view of the palaeozoic state of this part 

 of the north temperate zone arises for consideration, viz., the form- 

 ation of glaciers in lat. 53^, after the growth of the coal plants, 

 and the formation of the coral reefs of the mountain limestone. 

 Striation of the surface of stones is, however, an effect not confined 

 to glacial movements : it occurs often along surfaces of dislocation, 

 and may frequently, under the name of " slickenside," be detected 

 running in different directions along very many joint faces where 

 the movement of the rocks has been impeded, and the parts of the 

 rock have been readjusted. I found in the great quarry at North 

 Malvern a good example of this head, on the line of the fault which 

 there cuts off the Syenite, and cuts through these very Permians. 

 Following the principal fault lines in this quarry, which are very 

 conspicuous, we remark the universal scraping of the highly inclined 

 surfaces in lines parallel to the movement, and observe the crush- 



* Considerations of this kind are familiar to the readers of the -vrorks of 

 Sir Charles Lyell. 



