HOLI MALVEKN HILLS. 75 



or more or less altered into mica-schist. Both mica-schist and horn- 

 blende-schist occur at the summit, immediately beyond which there 

 is a trap-dyke *. This dyke encircles the north-western side of the 

 summit, and then runs a short distance along the western side of the 

 ridge, a little below the crest. Beyond the trap -rock, on the northern 

 slope of the hill, is slaty hornblende-rock, and at its base near the 

 turnpike road are gneissic rocks and mica-schist t- 



Besides the fault already mentioned, the Eagged-stone HiU is 

 traversed by at least two other faults. One of these crosses the 

 crest which connects the summits, and, running down the hollow 

 between the two ridges towards the south, is met by an oblique 

 fault directed north-east and south- west, which cuts off the southern 

 extremities of both ridges, and alters the dip to the north-east. 



The Ledbury and Tewkesbary turnpike-road passes between this 

 hill and the next. The rocks on either side of it, uncovered by the 

 HoUybush sandstone, are narrow alternating beds of hornblendic 

 and micaceous gneiss; and opposite the hollow, midway bet"w een the 

 northern spurs of the hill, the road is crossed by a trap-dyke. 



3. Midsummer Hill. — The next hill is divided in a similar man- 

 ner to the last, by a deep excavation directed towards the south, into 

 an eastern and a western spur, and the summit of the hill is sur- 

 rounded by the fosse of a supposed Danish encampment. The rocks 

 are best exposed along the western ridge. At its southern extremity 

 are narrow alternating bands of micaceous and hornblendic gneiss. 

 These are succeeded by thickly bedded, rather coarse-grained horn- 

 blende- and feLspar-rock ; a little quartz, and more rarely a little mica, 

 being added in some of the beds. Beyond this is somewhat massive 

 gneissic rock, in part rather poor in quartz, the mica be'ng some- 

 times of a dark-brown or nearly black, and sometimes of a deep-green 

 colour, and some beds contain epidote. Both the hornblendic and 

 the g-neissic rocks are traversed obliquely near their junction by a 

 trap-dyke which there crosses the ridge, and is probably the same 

 as that seen in the turnpike-road. Beyond the thick-bedded gneiss 

 is mica-schist, then some beds of massive gneiss containing dark- co- 

 loured mica, and occasionally a little hornblende in addition, which 



* The term " trap " is here restricted to igneous intrusive rocks composed 

 of augite and felspar, and is not employed in the more extended sense in which, 

 it is sometimes used to designate the more crystalline rocks of the hUls generally, 

 especially those rich in hornblende. 



t In his description of the rocks of this loill, Professor Phillips observes, " In 

 no part of the Malvern HiUs are the trap-rocks more varied in cliaracter than 

 in the Raggedstone ; nowhere do they depart more widely from the syenitic 

 tyxie, and approach more nearly to the ordinary aspect of eruptive trap, abound- 

 ing in compact felspar. Consistently with this fact is the observation, that in 

 no part of the Malvern chain is there so much of a metamorphic character in 

 the adjacent Palaeozoic strata, and these are the lowest clearly sedimentary de- 

 posits which appear in the district " {op. cit. p. 26). It should be observed, how- 

 ever, that since the above passage was written, the line of actual contact between 

 the crystalline rocks and the Hollybush sandstone has been exposed in several 

 places, showing the latter quite unaltered. 



