SEDGWICK ON THE MAY HILL SANDSTONE. 225 



conclusions which are at war with the fossil evidence, and are not 

 proved by the evidence of the sections. But if we keep our nomen- 

 clature in reserve, and determine the true relations of the several 

 groups, both by help of sections and of fossils, there is no real diffi- 

 culty. Somewhere near the base of No. 4, among coarse and confused 

 beds, we would {at least provisionally) draw our line of demarcation, — 

 grouping Nos. 4, 5, & 6 with the true Silurian series, and cutting off 

 from them all lower groups, which are, so far as we know them 

 zoologically, rocks of a different series {i. e. Cambrian). In this view, 

 the section of the South Malverns and the sections of May Hill are, 

 we believe, in good accordance ; and Nos. 4 and 5 become May Hill 

 sandstone and conglomerate. 



Sections on the N. W. fiank of the Worcestershire Beacon. 



It will be seen, by a glance at his very good ground plan (p. 60), 

 and the Map appended to his Memoir, that Professor Phillips con- 

 tinues his highest Caradoc group of the South Malverns (No. 5 of the 

 vertical section) along the western flank of the chain to a point north 

 of the Worcestershire Beacon. From this view it follows inevitably, 

 that the whole section, from the flank of the Worcestershire Beacon 

 to the Woolhope limestone, must be through beds which are superior 

 to the group under the obelisk of Eastnor Park. If this conclusion 

 be admitted, it seems to follow, from the published lists, that good 

 groups of Wenlock and Caradoc fossils overlap one another in the 

 Sections. For example. Professor Phillips states that the Eastnor Park 

 fossils belong to the lower fossil group of the Malvern sections (No. 4), 

 and all the groups up to the Woolhope limestone are called Caradoc ; 

 yet we have seen that these Eastnor Park fossils form a true Wenlock 

 group, not containing, so far as the fossils have been observed by our- 

 selves, one characteristic Caradoc species. But in the list of fossils from 

 the beds on the N.W. flank of the Worcestershire Beacon (which be- 

 long to No. 5 of the vertical section and therefore overlie the Eastnor 

 Park group), he gives three or four species which are generally consi- 

 dered characteristic of the true Caradoc sandstone (Memoir, pp. 65 & 

 66) ; and in a subsequent page (p. 75), while discussing the boundary 

 between the Wenlock and Caradoc groups, he states " that the older 

 characters (both mineral and organic) reappear within the later de- 

 posits, and the later characters show themselves amidst the earlier 

 deposits." 



In my last Memoir I accepted the hypothesis of an overlap, on the 

 strength of this evidence, though it made directly against myself. 

 Professor M'Coy opposed it strenuously, on the evidence of the Wood- 

 wardian fossils which had been collected by myself during previous 

 years ; and our joint excursion was the result of this difference of 

 opinion. 



Our time was so limited that we were compelled to confine our- 

 selves to one single section ; and we naturally selected one exhibited 

 " along a little stream which descends from the north-west end of 

 the Worcestershire Beacon, where (as stated by Professor Phillips) 

 the uppermost and lowermost beds of the Caradoc sandstone are 



