TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS, ry 
turnpike-road towards the summit, and better still at the Wind’s Point, The strike 
is here E, of N. and W. of 8. 
From the Wind’s Point to the Wych there is a long succession of alternating 
gneissic and schistose rocks, with occasionally beds of diorite interstratified. In 
these gneissic rocks, when hornblende replaces the mica, the alternations of the 
lighter-coloured bands of felspar and quartz with the darker hornblende give to 
the rock a finely ribboned appearance. The strike towards the central portions of 
this ridge, as opposite Malvern Wells, is nearly N. and 8.; but near to the Wych 
it varies on either side of K. and W. 
Thus far, with the limited exception of the northern extremity of Swinyards 
Hill, where the bedding has become obliterated, the hills consist of bedded rocks. 
But N. of the Wych these schists, &c., haye associated with them some granitoid 
rocks, especially in parts of the Worcestershire Beacon, and in the hill which over- 
looks Dowles Bench. On the southern side of the North Hill, hornblende occu- 
pies the place of the mica, and not unfrequently the two are associated in the 
same mass. Much of this rock, however, has a very gneissic structure. The bedding 
is entirely obliterated. It is possible that some portions of these more crystalline 
rocks may have been erupted, but there is no evidence of this beyond their massive 
character and the absence of veins running from them into the adjacent dioritic 
and schistose-rocks, The gneissic structure which they frequently exhibit, and-the 
manner of their occurrence when viewed on the large scale, are more in accordance 
with the supposition of their metamorphic origin. The remaining portions of this 
northern part of the range are made up of gneissic rocks and diorite. The general 
direction of the strike is N.W. and 8.E. 
These rocks have a more highly metamorphosed aspect, are more mixed with 
diorite, and contain more hornblende than the altered rocks of known Cambrian 
age, and in this respect they bear much similarity to some of the metamorphic rocks 
on the N. side of the River St. Lawrence. 
Throughout the range these rocks are traversed by numerous quartzo-felspathic 
and granitic veins. Dikes and intruded masses of trap are frequent, twenty-seven 
oceurring N. of the Wych, and six to the south of it. The veins are posterior to 
all the rocks except the trap-dikes. 
The oldest of the Paleozoic rocks of the district are the Hollybush sandstone and 
black shales, or Malvern equivalents of the Lingula-flags, or Primordial zone of 
Barrande. At their base there is a conglomerate of quartz-pebbles and rounded 
fragments of felspar, derived probably from the crystalline rocks against which 
they rest. Above these are olive and greenish-coloured sandstones, containing dark 
and bright green particles, probably of volcanic origin, and others that are flagey and 
micaceous; and at the little hamlet of White-leaved Oak they contain a band of 
limestone about 6 feet in thickness. Besides the characteristic Zrachyderma anti- 
guissima and a Scolithus, these sandstones have yielded a Lingula and an Orthis. 
Above these sandstones are the Black Shales. On the western and north-west- 
ern slopes of the Key’s End Hill these shales completely conceal the sandstones, 
but in the valley of the White-leaved Oak, and on the western sides of the Ragged- 
stone and Midsummer Hills they have been removed by denudation, whereby the 
underlying sandstones are exposed. These shales contain some well-known Lin- 
gula-flag fossils, besides others that have not yet been described. 
These sandstones and shales have interstratified with them many beds of vol- 
canic ash, grits, and lava-flows. Some of these form bosses from the denudation 
of the softer rocks from around them. At least three of these lava-beds occur in the 
sandstones, and many more are intercalated with the shales; but the exact number 
is not ascertained. In composition some are felspathic, others felspatho-augitic with 
crystals of augiteP, while some are highly calcareous, as is the case with the boss 
nearest Bransill Castle and with those on the HE. of Coal Hill. Some of the ash- 
beds contain cavities which have become filled with carbonate of lime or quartz, 
which in the weathered portions become dissolved out, and restore to the rock its 
original cellular structure. That these beds are contemporaneous intercalated de- 
posits, and not erupted, is clearly shown in the section at the north end of Coal Hill, 
where grit-, ash-, and laya-flows are regularly interbedded with decarbonized shale, 
and dipping with them to the 8.W, 
