If! 



pear to have been the sole inhabitants of the deep. Wo had now arrived within 

 view of the Woolhope "valley of elevation.'' So great has been the labour 

 bestowed upon tliis remarkable region by Sir Roderick Murchison, Professor 

 John Phillips, and other eminent geologists, and so copious is the information 

 already before the public, that our object in visiting it was rather to launch our 

 bark and proceed to our voyage from a port of such world-wide celebrity, than to 

 entertain much hope of making any fresh discoveries. The Woolhope Valley of 

 Elevation, admitted to be the most symmetrical of its type in Great Britain, is 

 described by Mr. Strickland as an "elevation crater, in which we see the 

 ineffectual struggles of a focus of volcanic energy to burst through the super- 

 incumbent strata." That this energy was directed towards a single point is 

 evident, for we find an unbroken succession of Silurian strata from the Caradoc 

 to the Old Red Sandstone, dipping on all sides from a common centre at angles of 

 15 to 70 deg. The area occupied by the upcast Silurian strata extends from 

 Dormington on the N.W. to Gorstley Common on the S.E., a distance of about 

 ten miles ; and from Fownhope on the S.W. to Putley on the N.E., about four 

 miles. A semicircle described from Fownhope to Putley, through the villages of 

 Mordiford, Dormington, and Tarrington, with convergent lines from the extremi- 

 ties of the arc meeting at Gorstley Common, would embrace the whole district, 

 the general outline of which resembles a boy's kite, or a pear tapering towards 

 Gorstley Common, which part Sir Roderick Murchison designates " the stem." 



The manner of upheaval, and the denudation to which the district 

 has been subjected, are strikingly manifest in tlie physical character of the 

 country. We perceive a central elliptically shaped dome encircled bj' two narrow 

 ridges of hills attaining their greatest altitudes towards the north; Seager Hill, 

 in the exterior circle, being 892 feet above the sea, while the elevation of a nearly 

 corresijonding point of the inner circle at Devereux Park is about 650 feet, or 

 somewhat lower than the central dome. In the "Memoirs of Geological Survey," 

 Professor Phillips gives the following graphic description of the upcast region : — 



" The internal structure corresponds most accurately with the external con- 

 figuration. The central dome is composed of the lowest strata, viz., Caradoc Sand- 

 stone, overlaid by Woolhope Limestone ; the concavity around it is sunk in the 

 Wenlock Shales ; the inner ring of hills is formed by the outcrop of Wenlock 

 Limestone ; the hollow which encircles it, of the Lower Ludlow Shales ; and the 

 outer chain of high ground which borders and overlooks the whole of this singular 

 district is a ridge of Aymestrey Rocks and LTpper Ludlow flags and sliales, 

 dipping everywhere from the centre towards a wide area of the Old Ked Sand- 

 stone." 



There can be no doubt that, previous to the convulsive movement of which I 

 have spoken, the whole country was continuously overlaid with Old Red 

 Sandstone, and that again by Carboniferous strata ; but during long ages of 

 submergence, the wreck of those systems has been swept away along with 

 immense masses of the upcast Silui ian formations. So complete was the work of 

 denudation, that not a fragment of Old Red or drift of any description can bo 

 detected in the valley. 



