72 REPORT—1863. 
All the remaining members of the Lower Silurian series are absent from the 
district, and the beds which rest upon the Malvern representatives of the Lingula-flags 
belong to the pegs Llandovery beds, to which all the other subdivisions of the 
Upper Silurian and the lower division of the Devonian systems succeed conformably. 
Towards the southern extremity of the hills, and north of West Malvern, the lower 
urple sandstones occur; but in all the intervening portion of the chain it is the 
cone beds only that rest upon the metamorphic rocks, overlapping the lower beds, 
and showing that the central portions of the chain were less depressed during the 
deposition of the Llandovery rocks than were the two extremities. That the hills 
were above the sea-level during this Llandovery period is proved by the fragments 
of the crystalline rocks which these conglomerates contain, as already shown by 
Professor Phillips. 
The cuttings which were made in the construction of the railway brought to 
light some important faults on the western side of the Wych, which had been pre- 
viously overlooked for want of sufficient exposures. Of these, the principal, or 
Colwall fault, crosses the railway-cutting near the western extremity of the tunnel. 
The interval between the railway and the hills on the south side of this fault con- 
tains all the beds from the Upper Llandovery to the Downton sandstone and lower 
part of the Old Red Marls inclusive. On the N. side of the fault all these beds are 
carried to the N.W., the Wenlock limestone as far as the turnpike-road, and the 
Aymestry limestone to Brock Hill. Between the Wenlock limestone on the N. side 
of the fault and the Downton limestone on the S. side there is, therefore, an inter- 
val in which the Wenlock shale is in contact with the Old Red Mar!s, and through 
this space the railway passes. At a little distance from this larger fault, on its 
northern side, are three smaller faults, and still further to the N. a fourth. This 
latter crosses the tunnel at the shaft nearest the hills, and the turnpike-road at the 
turning-off to the lime-quarries, and thence passes down the little valley in the 
direction of Brock Hill. 
Another great fault occurs along the western foot of the Herefordshire Beacon, 
extending from the Wind’s Point to Walm’s Well. This fault is caused by the 
upthrust of the metamorphic rocks through the Upper Silurian beds, which the 
have carried high up before them, at the same time bringing up the Hollybush 
sandstones and black shales, which, altered by trap-dikes, from the lower hills on 
the eastern side of the Beacon. All the Upper Silurian beds thus upraised have 
been subsequently removed by denudation. 
There are also some other faults of minor importance. 
As the general result of his researches the author infers— 
1. That the metamorphic rocks of the Malverns are certainly as old as the lower 
part of the Cambrian—probably as old as the Laurentian period *. 
2. That they were above the sea-level prior to the deposition of the Primordial 
zone, 
3. That during the deposition of the Primordial zone the range was sinking. 
4, That subsequent to this, the range was again elevated, and continued so until 
after the deposition of the Lower Llandovery rocks. 
5. That the Upper Llandovery rocks were deposited during a period of depres- 
sion, which depression continued until after the deposition of the Lower Devonian 
series ; that portion of the range which is between the Wind’s Point and the Wor- 
cestershire Beacon being the last to be depressed. 
6. That subsequently to the Lower Devonian period the range again became ele- 
vated, and continued so during the deposition of the Middle and Upper Devonian 
beds, the Carboniferous limestone, and the Millstone-gritT. 
7. That this was again followed by gradual depression, during which the Coal- 
measures, the Permian system, the Trias, and Lias were deposited. 
8. That the age of the faulting of the Upper Silurian and Devonian strata, on the 
* By Laurentian period, it is not intended to imply that they are the exact equivalents in 
time of the metamorphic rocks on the N. side of the St. Lawrence, but only that they are 
older than the Cambrian System. The term is here used generically to group all the altered 
rocks which are of pre-Cambrian age. 
+ These are all absent from beneath the Coal-measures at Martley on the N., and Dy- 
mock on the S., where they rest on the Lower Old Red sandstone. 
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