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PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



[Jan. 9, 



rock from their long resting-place ; and to him, to Captain Peyton, 

 of the Bartons, Ledbury, and to Captain Selwyn, I would express my 

 kind acknowledgments for their assistance in unravelling the secrets 

 of the Malvern tunnel. 



It is difficult to ascertain the thickness of the Upper Llandovery 

 rocks here (10 m. 1254 yds.), or to determine any line between 

 them and the overlying shales ; they are conformable, and pass one 

 into the other without any perceptible change, excepting in their 

 colour, as, from a purplish grey, they change into a blue mass of 

 shales with thin bands of limestone and grey and brown sand- 

 stones. I have thought it necessary, however, to draw a distinction 

 between the Llandovery rocks which rest against the syenite and 

 contain purplish shales with Pentameri, and the shales that underlie 

 the Woolhope limestone, because at a certain point I found the Penta- 

 mems-shales were overlain by a sandstone also containing Llandovery 

 fossils, but which is the rock formerly known as the "Caradoe sand- 

 stone of the Malverns," underlying the Eastnor Obelisk and cropping 

 out along Howler's Heath. At this point of the section, therefore, 

 I have drawn a somewhat arbitrary line, and have designated the 

 shales above this sandstone as Woolhope shales (10 m. 1320 yds.). 

 Dr. Grindrod, of Malvern, has a fine collection of fossils from these 

 Woolhope shales, and also some splendid slabs with Pentameri from 

 the Llandovery shales. 



The Woolhope limestone (10 m. 1436 yds.) is quarried in the 

 tunnel within a short distance of the shaft No. 2 ; and we then 

 pass on into the well-known Wenlock shales (10 m. 1449 yds.). 

 The distance from the Woolhope limestone to the point where the 

 Llandovery rocks rest against the syenitic ridge is nearly 200 yards ; 

 and it is therefore evident that the sedimentary rocks wore deposited 

 at this particular point of the Malverns in a little bay, or coomb, in 

 the syenite. This peculiarity was pointed out to me several years 

 since by my late friend Mr. Hugh Strickland. 



From shaft No. 2 to the mouth of the tunnel on the Ledbury or 

 western side of the Malverns, the railroad passes through Wenlock 

 shales, and strikes the Wenlock limestone (11 m. 260 yds.) at the 

 distance of about 260 yards from shaft No. 2. Here we have evi- 

 dences of a considerable fault : near the tunnel-mouth (11m. 352 yds.) 

 the Wenlock limestone is thrown down horizontally, the greater part 

 of the Lower Ludlow rock is wanting, the whole of the Ayraestry 

 limestone and the Tipper Ludlow shales are deficient, and some sand- 

 stones and marls of the Old Red series (and these certainly not the 

 lowest Old Red deposits) are faidted against a regular " scrunch " 

 (to use a miners' phrase) of the Lower Ludlow clays. The Malvern 

 greenstone was not so difficult to work (as I have been assured by 

 Mr. Ballard, the contractor) as this "jammed and scrunched clay" 

 (11 m. 440 yds.). 



From hence the railroad passes, for a considerable distance, over 

 red clays and marls covered with local drift ; and there is nothing 

 worthy of attention until we reach the road that leads from Colwall 

 to Ledbury. In the lane ascending towards The Bartons, the seat 



