North Hill. Worcestershire Beacon. Herefordshire Beacon. 



Part of the Malvern Hills as seen on their western flank, from a sketch by Mrs. Murchison. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

 MALVERN AND ABBERLEY HILLS. 



Silurian System in Worcestershire and the Eastern part of Herefordshire. Syenite 

 and other Trap Rocks of the Malvern and Abberley Hills, and dislocations of 

 the Silurian System along their flanks. (PI. 36, figs. 1 to 8.) 



Course and Characters of the Silurian Rocks on the Eastern side of Herefordshire. 



IT has been stated that the Old Red Sandstone of Herefordshire was deposited in a 

 trough. To establish this position I proceed to show, that rocks similar to those on 

 which it rests in Shropshire, West Hereford, and South Wales, rise from beneath the 

 eastern side of the chief mass of Old Red Sandstone. 



The Silurian rocks, though occupying a narrower zone than in Shropshire, constitute 

 an almost continuous band from the northern end of the Abberley Hills to the southern 

 end of the Malverns, a distance of nearly twenty-four miles, and though the strata 

 are dislocated, and even, through a course of four miles, reversed, yet they maintain a 

 prevalent inclination to the west, dipping beneath the Old Red Sandstone. Emerging 

 through these Silurian deposits, and forming a buttress on their eastern flank, are certain 

 igneous rocks, which in the Abberley Hills protrude only at intervals through the dis- 

 located strata, but in the Malvern Hills constitute a narrow ridge of syenite, rising 



