2 The Naturalist in Siluria. 



mors than one sucli upheaval ; but one so remarkable 

 as to have a world-wide repute. For my residouce is 

 in Siluria, contiguous to that singular and symmetrical 

 " valley of elevation " known as Woolhope. From the 

 summit of a high wooded hill, Penyard, which rises ab- 

 rxiptly in rear of my house, I can look over the whole 

 series of Upper Silurian rocks, from the northern edge of 

 their upcast at Mordiford, near the city of Hereford, to 

 their southern projection by Gorstley in Gloucestershire. 

 There they dip under the Devonian or Old Ri^d Sandstone, 

 again to show upon the surface a little farther south, in 

 the smooth-rounded dome of May HiH, standing solitary, 

 with its crest of Scotch firs conspicuous from afar. 



Looking to the right or east of the Woolhope district, 

 though still northward from my point of view on Penyard, 

 I have before my eyes, and at less than fifteen miles of 

 direct distance, the bold isolated chain of the Malverns, 

 an elevation geologically remarkable ,as that of Woolhope 

 itself. For while in its central axis we have all the 

 metamorphio rocks — schists, both micaceous and horn- 

 blende, with granite, syenite, gneiss, and felstone — as the 

 Laurentian, the oldest sedimentary formation known — 

 there also is the product of Plutonic action in Trappean 

 rocks, basalt brought to the surface in shafis and dykes — 

 volcanic too, the Raggedstone Hill at the southern ex- 

 tremity of the range being itself an ancient crater. Again, 

 on its western flank are the Silurian strata exposed by 

 upheaval, and the denudation of the Old Kod ; at the 

 same time that a corresponding downfall along its eastern 

 base — a fault of possibly many miles in vertical measure- 

 ment — shows us the more recent Triassic formation over- 

 spreading the beautiful plain or "Yale" of AVorcester, 

 with a little farther off the overlying Lias, here and there 



