v. CAMBRIAN PERIOD. 65 



small quantities, on fissured surfaces and in the interior of the 

 crystallized gneissic beds. 



Graphite, so it appeared to be, was found in the midst of the 

 Malvern rocks, about the centre of the tunnel on the railway to 

 Ledbury. 



Copper pyrites and copper carbonate occur above West Malvern. 



Sulphate of baryta occurs in veins which traverse the gneissic 

 rocks of the North Hill. The date of these veins may be as late 

 as the great faults to be noticed hereafter. 



CAMBKIAN PERIOD. 



The remote period of the formation of gneiss, with its associated 

 granite, syenite, and hornblende rock, came to an end by means 

 of a disturbance of the sea-bed, which left a very unequal surface 

 for the following stratification, and occasioned a great unconformity; 

 such that, in the northern part of the chain, the May Hill sand- 

 stones lean against the Worcester Beacon; the purple sandstones 

 are nearly vertical on the western face of the North Hill, while 

 the black shales and Hollybush sandstone are confined to the 

 southern hill-sides. This is the first great movement certainly 

 traceable in the region of Malvern. 



The particular circumstances of this early movement can be 

 but dimly seen through the mist of subsequent phenomena. We 

 may probably affirm that it was one of considerable local disturb- 

 ance, because the strike of the gneissic laminae is by no means 

 uniform in the different hills which compose the chain ; nor is 

 it as a rule even approximately parallel to their common direction, 

 but sometimes appears to cross it. If in imagination we replace 

 the now-elevated Silurian and .Cambrian strata, so as to make them 

 nearly horizontal, we shall have an uneven surface of gneiss mixed 

 with granitic and other rocks ; the lowest part as a whole in the 

 southern part of the chain : and it is on or against this depressed 

 part only that the oldest of the palaeozoic strata are seen to rest. 



One may believe therefore that the Malvern ridge of felspathic 

 rocks was in some degree sketched out at so early a date as the 

 epoch of this first disturbance of the sea-bed, and that it even then 

 stood in part above the waters. 



The Cambrian or second Malvern period is marked by the 



