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eruption which had thrown up the Malvern ridge ran exactly north and south — 

 they could trace it along the Berrow and Abberley Hills, and those who had long 

 sight, yet further. He had come upon a little cone of syenite in the middle of a 

 field about six or eight mUes to the north of the spot where they were now standing, 

 which fell exactly in the axis of this line of eruption, as marked by dialling with 

 the other hiUs. 



Sir Roderic finished his allusion to the oldest rocks on the Herefordshire side 

 of the hills, by pointing the attention of his auditors to the magnificent escarp- 

 ment in the distance, where the Old Red Sandstone took an entirely different 

 dip, and went underneath the Carboniferous rocks of the Forest of Dean, and by 

 asserting his belief that the rocks of the Old Red were entirely equivalent to 

 those of the magnificent gorges of the Rhine, though there they are slaty and 

 crystalised, while here they are argillaceous. Excepting as to a few Conglo- 

 merates and Cornstones found in the upper portion, nothing could be more 

 monotonous than their appearance throughout : it only proved that, in different 

 parts of the same seas, different conditions had existed, one paurt containing 

 more lime than others, and so on. 



Sir Roderic then turned to the New Red Sandstone on the Worcestershire 

 side, differing toto ccelo from the Old Red, and containing groups of organic 

 remains entirely distinct. He then explained the position of the New Red with 

 the Lias and Oolite from the maps of the Geological Survey, in which, by the bye, 

 he said he hoped now that he was appointed Director of the Survey, to effect 

 some little improvement — colouring the different limestones so as to make them 

 more distinguishable. 



Having just referred to the Bredon HUl as am outlying islet in the sea that 

 once washed the Malvern HiUs, and to the extensive denudation which must have 

 taken place to cut it off from the Cotteswolds, to which it so evidently belonged, 

 Sir Roderic showed how the age of the Malvems was determined by the condition 

 of the rocks around it. There had indeed been an upheaval of the range since 

 the New Red Sandstone was deposited at its base, for this rock was found tilted 

 up against it at the extraordinary angle of 50 degrees, but this had been long 

 after the Malverns had cooled down, for the sandstone was not in the least altered 

 by heat at the point of contact — the disturbance had been merely mechanical. 

 But blocks of Malvern Syenite were found imbedded in the Caradoc sandstone, 

 which was much older than the New Red, and this proved that the Mailvem 

 ridge was in existence when these colder strata were in process of formation. 



Sir Roderic then adverted to the proofs that a sea had once rolled down 

 " the Straits of Malvern," between the Malvern and Cotteswold ranges, and 

 that at a period when the climate was excessively cold ; for huge boulders of 

 granite, evidently detached from the mountains of Cumberland and Scotland, 

 were found scattered all along this channel, and he could not conceive how they 

 could have been removed so far except by the action of glaciers. 



The whole of England must have been at one time connected with the 

 continent of Europe, and the Isle of Man both with Ireland and England, fo;' 



