20 Mr, William Phillips on [Jan^ 



bottom were quite irregular: the hornblende here assumed a 

 more crystalline structure ; and here, if not in most other places, 

 the red felspar is not crystalline, but either compact, or 

 granular. 



In several places on the eastern side of the range, and parti- 

 cularly within a mile south of Great Malvern, many of the rocks 

 in which hornblende greatly prevails, have that schistose struc- 

 ture which has been mentioned as being parallel with the beda 

 above described : here, however, if this structure is to be consi- 

 dered as indicative of the direction of the strata, they will, for 

 the most part, be nearly perpendicular to the horizon, but mostly 

 with a slight inclination towards the north. In no other place 

 do marks so indicative of stratification appear. 



The Wych affords an excellent opportunity of viewing the 

 rocks of that part of the range : it exhibits a complete jumble of 

 most of the rocks discovered in it, not without some appear- 

 ances of stratification, which by due examination prove to be 

 fallacious. 



" Granite, rarely presenting the same appearance as that of 

 Alpine countries, — not decidedly crystalline,— in which sometimes 

 the quartz, sometimes the mica, is wanting," has been described 

 as being^the prevailing rock at the Wycli, as constituting a great 

 part of £lnd Hill, and the upper part of North Hill, and Swinnit 

 Hill ; but it is also acknowledged that " the mere term granite 

 would convey to most mineralogists an erroneous idea of the 

 nature of these rocks." An anxious search among these rocks 

 every where for more than three parts of the way along them 

 southwards from their termination on the north, did not satisfy 

 me that even a single hand-specimen of well-characterized granite 

 could be found. Granite is commonly understood to be a rock, 

 in which its ingredients, quartz, felspar, and mica, are all 

 "decidedly crystalline, without the appearance of one of them as 

 an imbeading substance. In the ** granite " of this range, the 

 felspar is invariably an imbedding substance, and compared with 

 hornblende, is rardy the imbedded substance ; it may be said rarely 

 to contain either quartz or mica, although each is sometimes 

 •well defined, but never, as far as my observation goes, is unac- 

 companied by hornblende. Hornblende is moreover the prevail- 

 ing rock of the range. In the quarry on the side of the road to 

 Ledbury, hornblende rock supports the stratified " granite ; " 

 and in Castle Morton quarry, on the eastern side of the range, 

 large blocks of red felspar enclosing quartz and calcareous spar, 

 ^re imbedded in hornblende rock. These masses sometimes- 

 appeared hke short thick veins crossing each other in various 

 directions, of which the terminations were mostly visible. It 

 •appears, therefore, impossible to consider this red felspar as a 

 granite, and probable that the only reason why many, if not most 

 -of the projecting rocks of the range exhibit a considerable pro- 

 j)ortion of this " granite," is, that the hornblende by which it 



