ABBERLEY TRAP RIDGE. 



419 



at Cowley Park, by the road from Great Malvern to Bromyard. The other is 200 or 300 paces to the 

 north, on the opposite bank of a little stream called Whippet's Brook. These knolls represent in 

 miniature, the whole chain of the hills. The centre of the first boss consists of greenstone, having 

 upon each side reddish felspar rock, both granular and compact. On the western flank, dark purple, 

 red and green marls are thrown up in vertical beds, with much decomposed matter between them 

 and the dyke, and the water saturated with the ferruginous colour of this clay, has, in overflowing, 

 discoloured the adjoining trap. On the eastern side is a quartzose sandstone, almost in the state of 

 quartz rock, the strata being vertical ; and a little beyond this, it is succeeded by conglomerate quartz- 

 ose grit. The little knoll which affords this section, rises only about thirty feet above the road. 

 The dislocated and altered strata on its sides, are evidently the grits and sandstone of the Caradoc 

 formation which we trace to large masses in Old Storridge Hill on the north, and Howler's Heath 

 on the south. In the other knoll, north of Whippet's Brook, the flanks of the syenitic greenstone 

 are wrapped round by highly inclined beds of quartzose felspathic conglomerate, which has been 

 largely quarried for a roadstone. This, therefore, is perfectly analogous to the cases of hard and 

 vertical conglomerate, and volcanic grits, which are thrown off the western flank of the syenite of 

 Midsummer Hill, and other points of the Malvern Hills. The direction of these knolls points to 

 the trappean hills which reappear on the left bank of the river Teme between Knightwick Bridge 

 and Abberley ; and along the intermediate space, ridges of the Silurian rocks are thrown up in 

 dislocated masses, the general strike of which is parallel to the main direction of the intrusive rocks 3 

 namely, from S. and by W., to N. and by E. 



Range of Trap between Knightford Bridge and Abberley. 



The trap rocks which occasionally protrude along this line, in a direction from south to north, 

 have not yet been described, nor has their position been marked upon geological maps. They 

 rise into several hills, and constitute the nucleus of that ridge, which is the distinct pro- 

 longation to the north of the Malvern Hills, and rising through the Silurian rocks before de- 

 scribed, further separates the Old Red Sandstone on the west, from the New Red Sandstone on 

 the east. The chief masses of trap along this line, constitute the round hills of Berrow, Woodbury, 

 and Abberley, but exhibit nothing more of their structure than can be detected in small protu- 

 berances peering through the verdant pastures with which they are covered. They all consist es- 

 sentially of u concretionary trap 1 ," having a base of greenish- grey, dingy-green, and purple com- 

 pact felspar, sometimes containing minute crystals of common felspar 2 ; when very finely con- 

 cretionary, as above the Hundred House, the rock is with difficulty distinguished from a grit, and 

 where the felspar has decomposed, presents a mottled surface. In Woodbury Hill, the structure is 

 more largely concretionary than in Abberley Hill. Between this hill and Abberley, is a singular 

 conical hillock, called Round Robin, of the same rock, but of a very red colour, and approaching 

 more to a syenite. In Berrow Hill the structure is coarsely concretionary, felspar of deep red 

 colour being predominant. 



I fortunately discovered one little boss of syenite, which has recently been cut into in the de- 



1 The Clent Hills on the opposite or eastern bank of the Severn, are precisely similar in composition and in 

 their forms of disintegration. They will be described in the chapter on the Dudley coal-field. 



2 It is here termed Jewstone, a prevalent name in Salop and Worcester for any hard trap rock. It is used 

 for the roads, and is strongly contrasted with the soft decomposing Mudstone of the Silurian System. 



