TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. b/b 



Permian to the Lias, and ou tlie west a greatly folded and faulted series rangino; 

 frooi the Arehtean to the Old Eed Sandstone, and capped in places by Coal-Measures 

 and Permian. 



Several divergent views as to the mode of origin of the Malvern Kange have 

 been offered. 



Murchison maintained that the gneissic series was an igneous mass containing 

 metamorphosed representatives of the Lower Palseozoie beds, into which it had 

 been intruded. 



Phillips regarded the range as a ridge of crystalline rocks against which the 

 Palseozoie beds had been deposited on one side, and the New Red Sandstone at a 

 later date on the other. 



HoU later introduced the idea of overlap of the Palaeozoic beds against a 

 pre-Cambrian axis, and of post-Liassic faulting on the eastern side. 



Still later Dr. Callaway suggested that the crystalline axis was a wedge of pre- 

 Cambrian rocks faulted up through the neighbouring deposits. 



The author's conclusions are as follows : — 



The Triassic beds have in no sense been deposited against the side of the range, 

 but are let down by a post-Liassic fault having a moderate downthrow, the Archaean 

 and Palaeozoic floor lying at a comparatively short distance below the surface on 

 the eastern side of the range. 



The Palaeozoic beds, which are frequently extensively inverted along the whole 

 length of the two ranges, appear to be everywhere separated from the gneissic 

 series by a fault, which sometimes dips into the hill with a considerable hade. 



This association of overfolds and thrust-planes suggests the forces concerned in 

 the building of mountain ranges, and other evidence points in the same direction. 



The axis of the Malvern Range is not merely a complex of schistose and igneous 

 rocks, as hitherto supposed, but includes infolded and infaulted strips of Cambrian 

 and Silurian rocks, running along lines (which in some cases mark thrust-planes) 

 more or less parallel to the axis of the range. 



The foliation of the schists in the neighbourhood of the most important of these 

 lines of dislocation has a very marked relation to the direction of the line, and 

 strongly suggests the formation of a secondary series of schists comparable with the 

 ' Newer Schists ' of the Scotch Highlands. 



The structure of the range is to be explained on the assumption that we are 

 dealing with the basal wreck of an old mountain chain, running generally north 

 and south along the western border of the old ' Mercian Highlands,' the over- 

 folding and over- faulting of which have taken place chiefly from the east. 



The easterly extension of this old range lies buried beneath the Triassic deposits 

 of the Vale of Gloucester. 



4. The Age of the Malvern and Abherley Ranges. 

 By Theodore Groom, M.A., D.Sc. 



The prevailing view that the Malverns formed an island or tract of land in the 

 Cambrian and Silurian seas is based firstly ou the supposed overlap, and, secondly, 

 on lithology. 



According to the author the appearance of overlap is simply due to faulting, 

 and the Lower Cambrian beds, supposed to be absent from the area, are well repre- 

 sented, and their inclusion within the heart of the gneissic series, together with 

 Silurian rocks, proves that the Cambrian and Silurian seas extended well over the 

 site of the range. 



The lithological resemblance between the Cambrian and Silurian pebbles and 

 crystalline rocks of the range is not complete, and is best explained on the assump- 

 tion that they have been derived from a neighbouring tract of land containing 

 types of rock similar to those now exposed in the Archaean series of the Malverns, 

 and of other Midland tracts. 



The geological structure, moreover, proves the elevation of the Malvern axis to 

 be due to Upper Palaeozoic and later movements. 



The age of the range is fixed by the circumstance that comparatively undisturbed 



