MALVERN HILLS. 59 



Forest very ancient rocks certainly. These Malvern Hills meet 

 us, on our journey from Oxford, like a wall, and differ in every 

 way from all the strata which surround them. 



The strata which compose the principal part of the Oxford 

 district have almost uniformly dips to the south or south-east; 

 and their ' outcrops' range from west to east, or from south-west 

 to north-east. On the whole, these outcrops may be said to be 

 on courses from W.S.W. to E.N.E., and to be gathered in three 

 principal but unequal ranges of hills alternating with parallel 

 vales. The hilly ranges are on the whole composed of firmer and 

 the vales of feebler strata; the term 'firmness' being taken to 

 signify the resistance offered by any mass of rocks to the dis- 

 integrating action of water, in falling rain, flowing rivers, or 

 rushing tides and currents of the sea. 



The Malvern Hills range from north to south. What may be 

 said to be their dip, marked by a succession of rolls, is west- 

 ward, under palaeozoic strata, while low down against their eastern 

 slope lie the mesozoic strata. On the western side, very ancient 

 strata, with great and frequent marks of disturbance through 

 pressure ; on the eastern side, broad tracts of comparatively modern 

 strata, free from disturbance. The lowest and oldest of these 

 mesozoic strata are of the Bunter (oldest part of the new red) or 

 Permian age ; they are conglomeratic, and partly derived from the 

 Malvern rocks against which they in places rest a . The Malvern 

 Hills stood up, then, before the sea-currents accumulated these 

 materials, though not to their present height. 



Passing now to the westward, we find among the disturbed 

 strata, almost in contact with the Malvern rocks, the old red 

 sandstone ; and in the Forest of Dean, on the west of the line 

 of the Malverns, the carboniferous limestone and coal measures 

 involved in the system of movements; so that we arrive at a 

 near approximation to the date of one of the great disturbances 

 of the Malvern region and a large range of country both north 

 and south of it, viz. after the coal formation, and before the Per- 

 mian (or JBunter) deposits. This is confirmed by the coal-workings 



Phillips, Memoir on Malvern Hills (Geol. Survey of Great Britain, vol. ii. part i), 

 p. in. The reader may also be referred generally for information on Malvern to 

 Sir R. I. Murchison's great work, Siluria ; and for special notices of the metamorphic 

 rocks to Dr. HolTs Memoir, Geol. Soc. Proceedings, vol. xxi. p. 72. ,, 



