LEDBURY DISTRICT. 9 



this latter part of the district, the northern jiart is drained by 

 Cradley Brook — the southern by a tributary of the Leadon. The 

 whole of this district is therefore a backwater of the Old Severn 

 Straits. 



The exact boundaries of this district are formed on the north by 

 the "Worcester and Hereford road, from its intersection of the County 

 boundary at Holywell turnpike to the Frog and Half-liide, near 

 Castle Frome ; from thence the western boundary follows some 

 small roads to Canon Frome, Ashperton, Pixley, Aylton Chapel, 

 and little Marcle, where it meets the boundary of Gloucestershire. 



GEOLOGY. — The Ledbury district, as apportioned by Mr. 

 PuRCHAS, takes in at its northern extremity, the western flanks of 

 the Chase-end and Ragged Stone hills, which constitute the southern 

 end of the Malvern hills. There is no locality along the range of 

 the IMalverns so important to the geologist as the section on the 

 Ragged Stone. In the Dictyonema shales at the south end of the 

 Chase-end hill, and the volcanic dykes and black schists containing 

 Oleni, near Fowlet's farm, wo have evidence of the great, and, 

 we may say, extreme antiquity of the Malverns, for rocks as old as 

 the Lingula Flags of Wales are deposited upon stratified old gneiss 

 rocks, which were as much hardened and consolidated at the 

 time those Lower Silurian rocks were laid down upon them by 

 Pre-Cambrian waters, as at the present time. 



The Middle Lingula Flags are fossiliferous near Fowlet's farm, 

 and have yielded many fossils, trilobites, and small brachiopodous 

 shells, to the researches of Miss Margaret Lowe, of Great Malvern, 

 and Mr. Turner, of Pauntley. Professor Phillips was the first 

 to discover these fossils, several years ago. Agnostus, which is an 

 important form of crustacean, for it is a form found in the Lingula 

 Flags of Sweden and America, as well as of Great Britain, was first 

 detected here by the late Mr. Hugh Strickland. 



Again, we here observe that old lava rocks, have been injected into 

 fissures, and erupted through crevices in the Hollybush sandstones 

 and Black shales. Thi^ old lava rock is of considerable thickness, 

 and occupies the physical position of the Llandeilo, and Bala (Caradoc) 

 rocks of Murchison. It is also worthy of remark that the L^'pper 

 Silurian deposits which were deposited on this volcanic rock, present 



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