354 R. Lightbody — Notes on the Geology of Ludlow. 



Secondly, at what level ? Was it originally waslied into the 

 bottom of the valley, and then elevated to its present position (as I 

 have assumed the deposit of gravel in the town was), or was it 

 formed at some very remote period, when its site was part of the 

 lowest ground in its neighbourhood, and received the debris of the 

 Cornstone beds above it? Or is it not probable that both these 

 causes influenced its position ? Its site being on the platform that 

 extends Eastward from Ludlow, towards the Titterstone Hills, seems 

 to favour the elevatory theory. 



However, a very long period must have elapsed since the deposit 

 of this gravel, as not only is the valley cut down to the depth of 

 probably 100 feet, but is covered by a thick bed of rounded gravel 

 composed almost entirely, as before mentioned, of the debris of the 

 Cambrian and Silurian rocks. ' There appears to be no trace left of 

 the Cornstone gravel, which seems all swept away, except the one 

 outlier noticed here. I do not know of any other gravel of the 

 same Cornstone quality in this neighbourhood. The thick bed of 

 Silurian and Cambrian gravel is found South of Ludlow, on both 

 banks of the Teme, and is excavated largely for ballast ; Mammoth 

 teeth have been found in it both at Wooferton S., and at Middleton, 

 N.E. of Ludlow. 



There would appear to have been at least three periods of 

 elevation — First, when volcanic action heaved up the two Clee Hills, 

 elevating at the same time the whole Old Eed and Carboniferous 

 strata, and no doubt cracking and faulting them in various directions. 

 Thus the action of the sea and rain was enabled to wear down all 

 the beds, except where they were protected by the sheets of Basalt 

 covering the summits of the Clee Hills. 



There was probably another series of gradual upheavals, on one 

 or both sides of the Teme valley, which enabled the river to cut 

 down its bed much deeper relatively to the high level gravel, and 

 which was consequently left nearly 100 feet above the present level 

 of the valley. 



At that time probably, what is now the course of the Teme and 

 its affluents, was a strait or estuary open to the sea (just as the vale 

 of the Severn is supposed to have been), but it is now occupied by a 

 thick bed of graA^el composed of the debris of the rocks of the 

 Longmynd Stiperstones, and other hills of Cambrian and Silurian 

 age. This gravel is loose, and intercalated with thin beds of red 

 sand, which increase in thickness near Church Stretton (as seen in a 

 ballast pit near the Eailway), as if they had originated from a wash 

 of the Permian beds near Shrewsbury, through the narrow strait at 

 Stretton. 



The third upthrow has, I conceive, given rise to the ridge on 

 which the town and castle of Ludlow stand, carrying up with it a 

 portion of the gravel that once covered the bottom of the valley, 

 and damming the water above it, until the river eventually found its 

 way through the cracks produced by the upheaval, and thus formed 

 its present course. 



In favour of this view, there is an undoubted fault running across 



