which raised the Malvern Hills. 361 



hardly have failed to shatter and twist up the margin of the de- 

 posits on its eastern or downcast side_, although their amount of 

 statical resistance was such as to forbid any general elevation of 

 them en masse. 



Assuming that such was the condition of things in this region 

 before the deposition of the New Red Sandstone,, let us endeavour 

 to trace the mode of action of the forces which produced it. 



There is evidence that elevatory movements have taken place 

 along the axis of the Malvern chain before^ as well as since, that 

 great and transient outburst which dates between the Carboni- 

 ferous and Triassic epochs. A mass of syenitic rock had been 

 elaborated by igneous agency beneath this tract in very remote 

 geological times. It had become solidified, and had been elevated 

 above the oceanic surface before the Upper Silurian formations 

 were deposited. The sections on the west side of the Malvern 

 Hills show that the Mollusca and Corals of the Caradoc sand- 

 stone lived and flourished in immediate contact with the plutonic 

 rock, and that pebbles of the latter were rolled into the sea of 

 that period, and were there imbedded in company with the animal 

 remains. (See Mem. Geol. Surv. vol. ii. p. 33.) We may there- 

 fore suppose that at this period a state of things prevailed such 

 as is here represented. 



Sxirface of / ^ " ^ llie Sea ^ 



Cdra^^y^^m^^ ^ yem le 



i('i' i iSdndston e 



In other portions of the Welsh region we find similar proofs 

 of elevations having taken place in remote palaeozoic times. 

 Thus at Bishop^s Castle, and in the country to the north-west of 

 it, the Caradoc sandstone is found to lie unconformably to the 

 subjacent rocks ; and the Wenlock shale in the same way over- 

 laps the Caradoc sandstone near Bishop^s Castle and Builth. 

 (See Ramsay in Journ. Geol. Soc, vol. iv. p. 296.) Some of these 

 ancient disturbances were probably connected with those referred 

 to in the Malvern district. But this most ancient elevation of 

 the syenite seems to have been comparatively small in amount, 

 and was wholly covered up by the formations which succeeded 

 the Caradoc sandstone, and which contain no fragments of sye- 

 nitic rocks. In order to explain the changes which now took 

 place, it may be legitimately assumed that the floor of soHdified 

 syenite on which the sedimentary deposits rested was itself un- 

 derlaid by igneous rock in a fluid and active state. Let it be 

 further granted, that the present breadth of the Malvern syenite 



