A Day with the Field-Clubs. 897 



district is full of interest. Church Stretton itself is situated 

 nearly on a very remarkable line of " fault," which extends all 

 aloug the base of the Longmynd Hills, and by which the strata, 

 once horizontal, have been so completely disturbed that on one 

 side of this line the ancient Cambrian rocks are now tilted up 

 almost perpendicularly, while on the other the much more 

 recent Wenlock (or, as some suppose, Ludlow) and Caradoc 

 rocks repose against them in a far more horizontal position. 

 This displacement has manifestlybeen accomplished by the push- 

 ing up of the strata to the west of this fault ; and the uncon- 

 formity is considered by Professor Ramsay to amount to two 

 thousand feet. This powerful dislocation was probably con- 

 nected with the volcanic action of which the Caradoc and its 

 neighbourhood present so many traces. The rocks of the 

 Caradoc have been submitted to far greater heat than has acted 

 upon the Cambrian rocks, which occur much lower in the order 

 of the strata ; so intense indeed has been the igneous action 

 that all traces of fossils have disappeared, though the lines of 

 stratification, which identify them with other rocks in which 

 fossils abound, are preserved. Igneous action is, of course, 

 closely connected with volcanic action, and it is a remarkable 

 circumstance that this line of "fault," on the eastern side at least, 

 continues to the present day subject to those shocks of which 

 we have lately had so notable an example. It is even stated 

 that in Ludlow, which is divided by a well-known " fault," 

 the earthquake was felt considerably on one side of the town, 

 while the other part was comparatively exempt from it. 



Soon after eleven o ; clock the members of the united field- 

 clubs and their friends, who had assembled at Church Stretton, 

 proceeded from the railway station on their way to Caer Caradoc. 

 The mountain presents on the side towards the high road, that 

 is, on its western flank, a declivity so steep that the ascent is 

 almost impossible ; but by a lane, which turns out of the road 

 from Church Stretton by way of Hope Bowdler towards 

 Wenlock, and leads up through the elevated valley between 

 Caradoc and Hope Bowdler hills, we reach a spot where, though 

 the ascent is still very difficult, it is somewhat less abrupt, and 

 the distance to the summit is considerably less. A few of the 

 party, who were unwilling to encounter the fatigues of the 

 longer excursion to which the printed programme invited us, 

 separated from the rest soon after leaving Church Stretton, 

 and followed this short and direct road to the mountain ; but 

 the greater part chose the way to Hope Bowdler. This road, 

 for nearly a mile, presents a gradual ascent, and we proceeded 

 but slowly both from this circumstance and because the atten- 

 tion of the visitors was continually arrested by the imposing 

 masses of the Caradoc, Lawley, and Hope Bowdler hills before 



