90 THE POIKILITIC PERIOD. CHAP. 



cannot be derived from Malvern or any neighbouring- hills. They 

 may perhaps have come from the country near Shrewsbury, along 

 the line of ancient coast,, by drifting. Professor Ramsay invokes 

 the help of floating ice. No fossils occur in this curious rock. 



The heights reached by the Permian conglomerates are very 

 moderate near Malvern, but grow considerable as we proceed north- 

 ward. At Haffield, south of the Malvern range, 400 feet ; Rose- 

 mary Hill, north of it, 340 feet ; Berrow Hill, further north, 630 

 feet; Woodbury Hill, 930 feet; highest point of Abberley Hills, 

 940 feet. This rising of the conglomerate hills to greater heights 

 as we go northward is the more remarkable, as the older strata 

 on which or against which they rest are found to be less and less 

 elevated in that direction. The Permian beds never pass over the 

 summit of the anticlinal curvatures in the Silurian beds of the 

 Abberley range. 



Above the Haffield or Permian conglomerates we have, in the 

 Malvern district, red sandstones of considerable thickness, and on 

 these white sandstones. They are but slightly exposed, however, 

 in contact with the Malvern rocks, and then appear in a very 

 confused state. Much more complete in all respects is the series 

 of these strata about Newent, where red sandstone and con- 

 glomerate, 200 to 400 feet thick, divided by red shales and capped 

 by white sandstones, are very extensively seen. The pebbles of 

 the conglomerate are mostly of quartz. Similar observations may 

 be made on the eastern side of the Abberley Hills, about Martley. 

 No organic remains have been found in these strata, the upper 

 part of which corresponds apparently to the sandstone of Grinshill, 

 near Shrewsbury, which yields the curious fossil reptile named 

 Rhynchosaurus. 



Then follows, in the Malvern region, the thick deposit of red 

 marls, 400 to 500 feet, which indeed have in their lower part some 

 white and red sandstone bands, thereby obscuring the limit of two 

 deposits, which are strongly enough contrasted on the whole. Still 

 higher in the midst of the marls occur some other thin sandy layers, 

 and, after another interval, somewhat thicker and more varied sand- 

 stones and shales of a pale blue colour, which constitute the Keiiper 

 sandstone and contain fossils, about twenty feet thick at the most. 

 These are well seen about Pendock Rectory, south-east of Malvern, 

 the residence of an active explorer of these beds. Remains of fishes 



