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The Geology and Archoeology of Malvern. By the Eev. W. S. 

 Symonds. Bead at the Meeting at Pendoch, July 20, 1876. 



The strata which are known to Geologists as the Mesozoic 

 succeeded the concluding stage of the old worlds of life known 

 as the Permian. The Triassic and Permian geologic histories 

 are somewhat desolate in their records of animal and vegetable 

 life. The Permian rocks are the twilight of the long old-life 

 periods ; the Triassic are the dawn of that secondary or middle 

 life epoch, when the old life forms and races pass away for ever, 

 and are replaced by new forms, dynasties, and races endowed 

 by their Creator with fresh modes of action, energy and life. 

 Within a short walk we may pass from the newer rocks to the 

 older, from the Trias to the Permian, and from the Permian to 

 a locality where we may step, in a few yards, from the youngest 

 of the old-life rocks (the Permian), on to the representative of 

 the most ancient stratified rock masses we are acquainted with 

 in the crust of this planet, the Laurentian gneiss of the Malvern 

 Hills. The walk from the Trias of Eedmarley to the Permians 

 of Haffield Camp is easy, and from the Permians which fringe 

 Howler's Heath to the Laurentian gneiss of the Chase End Hill 

 of the Malvern range is easier still ; but in the history of suc- 

 cessive life periods what a vast gulf lies between ! We may 

 liken it to a Geologist who has laid himself down to rest with 

 his mind floating among the forms of the old world animals he 

 has been studying, when the spirit of death comes across him, 

 and he awakes in a new world, covered with new plants, and 

 inhabited by new animals. From the ridge near Hazeldine, in 

 the parish of Eedmarley, we look upon the representatives of a 

 great and complex system of formations. In the Cotteswold 



