some of the highest hills ; and it is difficult to behold the Coal Measures of South 

 Wales and the Forest of Dean, with outliers of the same system capping " Old 

 Red " at Pen-cerrig-calch on the top of the Black Mountains, and on the Clee 

 Hills in Shropshii-e, without concluding that they are the remaining portions of a 

 great mantle of Carboniferous strata which, at one period, must have stretched 

 continuously over the Old Red Sandstone of this district ; and in confirmation, it 

 is interesting at several points on the axis of disturbance between May Hill and 

 the Southern part of the Malvern Ridge, to observe the Coal Measures overlaying 

 the Old Red, dipping rapidly eastward underneath the Triassic strata of the New 

 Ked series. It is evident that the convulsive movements which produced the 

 upheaval took place after the deposition of the Carboniferous system, and prior to 

 that of the Triassic. They are referred by Sir Robert Murchison (Silurian System, 

 p. 131) to the close of the Permian epoch. 



On the subject of igneous rocks, I may observe that our district afiFords some 

 very interesting examples. I have already alluded to the syenitic ridge of the 

 Malvern Hills — we there find the igneous mass assuming the various forms of 

 granite, greenstone, hornblende, felspar, and serpentine, graduating into each 

 other in perplexing compounds. A rock technically undistinguishable from gneiss 

 is also abundant. This plutonic mass was protruded upwards in the form of a 

 wedge, in a cooled or consolidated state, rising abruptly over the downcast area 

 of Worcestershire, and throwing the strata on the Herefordshire side into every 

 variety of contortion, actually overturning in some places the Silurian formations 

 which rested upon it. 



Some very interesting instances of trap occur in the area covered by the Old 

 Red Sandstone. At Bartestree and Brockhill, crevices of dislocation have been 

 filled by greenstone ejected in a fluid state from the plutonic region below, as 

 evidenced by the heat-altered strata with which it is in contact. 



The drifted clays or gfravels of the County, and the fluviatile deposits of 

 different ages are worthy of especial attention. They are found to contain the 

 colossal remains of elephants, elks, hippopotami and other huge mammalia of 

 extinct species. Through the kindness of Mr. Ballard we have here ocular proof 

 of the fact. 



I may now remark that, notwithstanding the fears and regrets with which I 

 commenced the study of Geology, I think I have reason to congratulate the Club 

 upon the extensive and highly interesting field for research which lies before it. 

 We find ourselves in the neighbourhood of a fault of unequalled magnitude and 

 grandeur, surrounded by evidences of active plutonic agencies, and our district 

 embraces extensive developments of the Carboniferous, Devonian, and Silurian 

 systems. The Silurian and Carboniferous formations by the laboriously minute 

 researches of Sir R. Murchison, Professor Phillips, the officers of the Geological 

 Survey, and others, are, with their fossil contents, pretty accurately known ; but 

 the Devonian, or Old Red, computed to be in this county at least 5,000 feet in 

 thickness, is comparatively a terra incoonita; and from the slowness with which 



