190 PEOF. T. T. GEOOM ON THE GEOLOGICAL [Feb. I9OO, 



suggest rather an old shore-line than a fault. Phillips, however, 

 recognized the faulted character of the junction with the Trias, 

 hut evidently considered that the fault had been formed before the 

 epoch of the New Red Sandstone (under which term he included 

 not only the Trias, but also the Haffield Breccia), and that the beds 

 of this formation had been deposited against an old shore bounded 

 by the fault. 1 Phillips was presumably led to take this view from 

 the circumstance that the old rocks of the range had been undoubtedly 

 disturbed and elevated before the deposition of the New Eed Sand- 

 stone, and now stand up much in the manner of a coast- line with 

 several bays ; in these sheltered recesses, he supposed that breccias, 

 in part derived from the hills themselves, were deposited. 



Prof. Hull later to some extent shared this view, and regarded the 

 Malvern and Abberley Hills as part of a shelving shore against 

 which the Triassic beds overlapped 2 ; the northernmost portion of 

 the Abberley Range, indeed, he supposed to be an actual relic of 

 the old cliff against which the Trias was deposited. He concluded, 

 however, that, judging from the relative positions of the Permian 

 Breccia and the Trias, the former had undergone extensive dis- 

 turbance before the Triassic period (op. cit. p. 16). 



In the Geological Survey map of the district (Sheet 43, N.E.), the 

 fault which runs along the eastern face of the Malverns is repre- 

 sented as dislocating the Triassic beds farther south, though in 

 Phillips's map (op. cit. pi. i) there is no indication of this. I have 

 •been unable to determine who was responsible for the introduction 

 of the southerly extension, or when it took place ; but clearly it 

 represents a modification of Phillips's view. Holl, also, regarded 

 the fault as of post-Liassic age. 3 



I have carefully followed the whole of the eastern margin of 

 the old rocks of the Malvern Range, as also much of that of the 

 Abberley Range, and conclude (1) that there is no clear evidence that 

 these hills ever formed the margin of the Triassic waters ; (2) that 

 the Triassic rocks have been brought into juxtaposition with the 

 older rocks of the chain by a post-Liassic fault. 



The actual junction of the rocks on the two sides of the boundary 

 has rarely been seen, but its position is generally determinable by a 

 somewhat sudden change in the angle of slope, the gentle surface of 

 the softer Triassic beds abruptly giving place to the steeper incline of 

 the Archa3an or Silurian surface. 



The outcrop of the several horizons of the Haffield Breccia and 

 the Trias shows a marked independence of the course of the 

 boundary-line, as may be seen by an examination of the Geological 

 Survey map of the district. Indeed, a number of undulations trans- 

 verse to the direction of the Ranges end sharply against the older 

 rocks composing the latter, and various members of the Trias and 



1 Mem. Geol. Surv. vol. ii (1848) pt. i, pp. 6, 49, 140, 164, & 207. 



2 'Trias & Permian of Midlands' Mem. Geol. Surv. 1869, pp. 16, 62, & 67. 



3 Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxi (1865) p. 101. 



