GEOLOGY" 



THE records of the ancient history of the earth are written in the 

 various clays, sandstones, Hmestones, and other stony materials of 

 which its solid surface is composed. These are classified for 

 convenience into larger and smaller groups, according to their 

 order of position, and the fossilized remains of plants and animals which 

 they contain. Each group may comprise strata of very diverse mineral 

 character, but the larger divisions mark the chief life epochs of which 

 records more or less complete are preserved in all parts of the world, 

 while the smaller groups indicate the more local conditions of natural 

 history. Thus we refer to the Silurian period as one of the great epochs 

 of geological history, and to the Woolhope Limestone or Ledbury Shales 

 as one of the more or less local conditions in that great epoch. 



Geological history is for the most part deciphered from ancient sea- 

 beds. The great oceans and the shallow seas are areas in which are ever 

 being deposited various accumulations of sand and shingle, mud or clay, 

 of shell, coral, or organic ooze. The land-surfaces are areas mainly of 

 waste, from which materials are carried away by streams and rivers, or 

 by the sea itself, to be spread over the ocean-bed along with remains of 

 plants and animals that may be carried out to sea, or which live and die 

 in the ocean. The chief areas of deposition on the land are along the 

 courses of rivers and in lakes. 



In the course of ages all the land-areas would have been wasted 

 away had not disturbances, which have happened again and again, 

 brought old sea-beds or old lake-beds to the surface. There they have 

 been acted upon by rain, and rivers, and glaciers, and have been worn 

 down or eroded. Through subsequent depression, marine and sometimes 

 extensive lacustrine deposits have been spread over the eroded surfaces of 

 the older strata. This has occurred again and again in the area which 

 now forms Worcestershire, and it will be understood that the intervals 

 during which the strata were upheaved to form land are for the most 

 part breaks in geological time, locally unrepresented by strata. 



Thus it is that while Worcestershire contains a most interesting and 

 varied series of geological records — records which date from the earliest 

 known geological times — yet there are great gaps unrepresented in the 

 county by any geological formation. 



The following table shows the stratified formations and the igneous 

 rocks which appear at the surface in different parts of the county : — 



* In the parts relating to the Lias and Rha:tic Beds the writer has had the advantage 

 of some MS. Notes prepared by Mr. R. F. Tomes, F.G.S., whose observations are duly- 

 acknowledged. 



