248 



oolljop^ J3.atitraltsts' JFicItJ Club. 



Joint Meeting with the Malvern and the Worcestershire 

 Naturalists' Clubs. 



EASTNOR, DOG HILL, AND LEDBURY. 

 Tuesday, May ijth, i860. 



In the minutes of our Club there is no record of this Meeting. It is, however, 

 recorded in the Transactions of the Worcestershire Naturalists' Club, from 

 which we read that the united party proceeded to the line of the Hereford railway, 

 where a shaft was being sunk in the Silurian rocks. Mr. S. Ballard, the Engineer 

 of the line, explained its course. 



Thence the route was taken to the open cutting at the mouth of the tunnel 

 near Dog Hill, Ledbury, where Rev. W. S. Symonds delivered an extempore 

 discourse upon the order of succession of the " Passage-Beds," between the 

 Silurian strata and the Old Red system here exposed to view in a very pic- 

 turesque manner, as also upon the curious bucklered fishes contained in some 

 of them, especially adverting to the curious forms of Auchenaspis, Plectrodus, 

 Cephalaspis, and Pteraspis, all now extinct. It was important to observe that 

 there was no sudden breaking off, but a gradual retrocession of strata from the 

 Ludlow rocks into the Old Red. 



In his sketch of the Proceedings of the Malvern Field Club from 1853 to the 

 close of 1868 (see Transactions of the Malvern Naturalists' Field Club, Part III.), 

 on page 21, referring to the year i860, the Rev. W. Symonds writes: "The 

 principal Field investigation of this year consisted in various explorations and 

 examinations of the Malvern tunnel near the Wells. On several occasions many 

 of the members joined in the arduous undertakings, which weie carried out by 

 Mr. Alan Lambert and myself, of taking sections of the Malvern and Ledbviry 

 tunnels, amid darkness, dirt, wet, and smoke. The results of these explorations 

 is fortunately recorded elsewhere, for probably many years will pass before 

 human eyes will again rest upon the vast masses of greenstone, the great veins 

 of red syenite, and the fissures filled with old Silurian muds and shales containing 

 fossils, which are entombed in the bosom of the Hills (see " Quart. Journ. Geol. 

 Soc," p. 113, May, 1861, and " Siluria," 4th edition, p. 94). 



Another important discovery was the detection of several bones of the Bos 

 primigenius. Rhinoceros, and Mammoth, found by Mr. Ballard's workmen in the 

 till and angular drifts which rest against the flanks of the Malverns. Other 

 specimens obtained by Mr. Walter Burrow were found in the excavations made 



