adherent to the Trap of the Malvern Hills. 291 



The next thing to determine was the position of this con- 

 glomerate in relation to the ridge of sienitic rocks amongst 

 the detritus of which its fragments lay. This was difficult. 



We.t. 



East. 



12 



The abundance of detritus on all the slopes is so great as to 

 conceal for the most part the junction of the stratified and 

 unstratified rocks. The loose shelly pieces we found abun- 

 dantly for fully one-third of a mile along the mountain side, and 

 at length the conglomerate rock itself was plainly seen ad- 

 hering to the extreme western nearly vertical face of the trap 

 mass, west of the Worcestershire beacon, in a situation con- 

 tiguous to a large excavation of the lower Caradoc sandstone. 

 These facts ascertained, I waited for the arrival of Sir H. 

 T. De la Beche at Malvern, to have the shelly bed thoroughly 

 explored, and its contact with the trap rocks carefully traced. 

 We found the surface of the trap nearly vertical, but undu- 

 lating and irregular, and its strike nearly north and south ; 

 the rock is here hornblendic, dark green or purplish in co- 

 lour, and, as usual in all these hills, it is within short distances 

 mixed and variegated with more felspathic portions, felspatho- 

 quartzose veins, &c. Closely adhering to it was usually a 

 softish laminated clay ; bedded in the clay, or touching the 

 trap rock, were multitudes of rolled pebbles and angular chips 

 and fragments of stone, accumulated in an irregular bed above 



U 2 



