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VOL. XIV. (3) WOOLHOPE ANTICLINE 257 
THE WOOLHOPE DOMICAL ANTICLINE 
I. GENERAL DESCRIPTION 
BY C. CALLAWAY, M.A., D.Sc., F.G.S. 
The substance of this and the following paper by Mr 
T. Mellard Reade, was given at the Woolhope Field 
Meeting, on Thursday, May 15th, 1902. The members 
of the Club were assembled at Backbury Camp, from which 
the geological features of the Woolhope dome were clearly 
observed. In the centre is the rounded boss of May Hill 
Sandstone encircled by the Woolhope Limestone. Sur- 
rounding this elevation is an elliptical valley, excavated in 
the Wenlock Shale, followed by the Wenlock Limestone, 
the Lower Ludlow Shale, the Aymestry Limestone, and 
the Upper Ludlow Shale, all of these strata dipping away 
from the central boss. The limestones form ridges 
sweeping round the area in ellipses, with intervening 
valleys excavated in the shales. From Backbury Camp, 
the Woolhope area seems like a gigantic amphitheatre, the 
encircling Wenlock and Aymestry limestones resembling 
tiers of Cyclopean benches. The events illustrated in 
sequence by these geological features are the following. 
The Silurian series, from the May Hill Sandstone to the 
Upper Ludlow Shales, were successively laid down at the 
bottom of the sea. Then, at the close of the Carbonifer- 
ous epoch, the whole mass of strata, with the overlying 
Old Red Sandstone, was bent into a pear-shaped dome, 
and slowly elevated. As soon as it reached the sea-level, 
the waves began to plane it off, and as it continued to rise, 
