44 Reports and Proceedings — 



There is a groove between the calices, and it corresponds with the 

 imperfect junction of the corallite walls. Fissiparity occurs and also 

 gemmation. 



Natural sections show a narrow ribbon-shaped columella. 



The examination of the perfect specimens proves that whilst they 

 cannot be understood without sections, sections alone would never 

 enable the palaeontologist to realize the elaborate superficial structures. 

 It was pointed out that weathering utterly destroyed the generic and 

 specific characters, and the author ventured to caution the students of 

 the Madreporaria against describing weathered and worn specimens of 

 any types, and not to depend entirely upon sections. 



The new genus Olyphastrcaa includes Astrseidse of the Goniastraeoid 

 alliance with fissiparity, gemmation and a ribbon-shaped columella. 

 Septastrcea Forhesi becomes Glyphastr(sa Forlesi, Edw. & H., sp. 



2. " On the Metamorphic Rocks of the Malvern Hills." Part I. 

 By Frank Eutley, Esq., F.G.S., Lecturer on Mineralogy in the Royal 

 School of Mines. 



Part I. is the result of conclusions arrived at in the field. Part II. 

 will be devoted to a microscopic description of the rocks. 



The author referred especially to the paper by the late Dr. Holl, 

 whose work he, in the main, confirmed. Dr. Holl's object was to 

 demonstrate that the rocks which had hitherto been treated as syenite, 

 and supposed to form the axis of the hills, were in reality of metamorphic 

 origin, and belonged to the Pre-Cambrian. Mr. Rutley restricted his 

 observations to the old ridge of gneissie syenite, granite, etc., which 

 constitutes the main portion of the range, and reversing the order of his 

 predecessor, commenced at the north end of the chain. 



He considers that the beds of crystalline rock, mostly of a gneissie 

 character, in the old ridge have been disposed in a synclinal fl.exure, 

 which stretched from the north end of the chain to the middle of 

 Swinyard's Hill, where they receive an anticlinal flexure, and are 

 faulted out of sight. The length of this synclinal fold would be over 

 5^ miles. The lithological evidence is in favour of the rocks forming 

 the north part of Swinyard's Hill being a repetition of those on the 

 Worcestershire Beacon. We might expect to find the older beds 

 having the coarsest granulation, and being even devoid of foliation, and 

 this is what occurs on the Malverns, where the northern hills are made 

 up of the coarsest rocks, with finer schistose beds towards the south ; 

 the exception is at Swinyard's Hill ; hence there are two groups of 

 coarsely crystalline rocks at either extremity of the presumed synclinal. 

 The contrast between these and the fine-grained rocks of the other 

 portions of the range has already attracted attention. The most 

 northern of the coarse-grained masses is cut off towards the south by a 

 fault near the Wych, while the other lies between a fault on the north 

 side of the Herefordshire Beacon and the before-mentioned fault on 

 Swinyard's Hill. 



The metamorphic rocks of the Malverns seem, therefore, to be 

 divisible into three series extending from the JS^orth Hill to Key's End. 

 A Lower, of coarsely crystalline gneissie rocks, granite, syenite, etc., a 

 Middle, of gneissie, granitic and syenitic rocks of medium and fine 

 texture, and an Upper, of mica-schist, finely crystalline gneiss, etc. A 

 diagrammatic section shows the distribution of these ; the northern 



