424 



DISLOCATIONS — MALVERN HILLS. 



L 8.) across these ridges, explains the full and conformable development of all the 

 formations on this point, and also the flexure and break of a portion of them on the 

 outer and parallel zone extending to Ledbury. There, the southerly strike being re- 

 sumed, it is beautiful to observe how at the point of meeting of these conflicting di- 

 rections, the formations are heaved into domes ; a phenomenon similar to that which 

 we shall afterwards notice in the Dudley district. The mean direction, therefore, of the 

 Silurian Rocks from the northern point of the Abberley Hills to the southern termination 

 beyond Ledbury, a distance of twenty- three miles, is from north and south, the south- 

 south-easterly strike of the strata from the Teme to the Malverns compensating for the 

 south-south- westerly near Ledbury. 



Amid the various faults and breaks along this line are some of very singular character ; 

 but most of the apparent lateral shifts which the colours on the map would indicate, 

 can be accounted for by the discrepancy of the angles of inclination of the strata, which 

 have been disjointed by these cross fractures. 



To the north-west of the Malverns, near Batchelor's Bridge, where the Wenlock 

 limestone is fully developed and conformably arranged, it has, as before stated, three 

 workable bands of limestone, separated by concretions and shale. Where the formation 

 approaches the Malvern Ridge, it is interesting to watch the effects produced upon those 

 subordinate members. The three bands near Brand Lodge converge and almost unite 

 in one mass ; the shale and concretions appearing to have been squeezed out. 



Ground-plan of three bands of Limestone near Brand Lodge. 



This might be attributed to the natural thinning out of portions of the included beds, 

 but we no sooner turn round the adjacent trappean promontory of the Herefordshire 

 Beacon, than we again meet with the three bands of limestone in vertical, distorted,, or 

 highly inclined beds at different levels on its steep slopes, each calcareous mass separated 

 by a considerable breadth of shale. The same is observed in the ridgeway of Eastnor 

 Park. 



The phenomenon, however, most worthy of attention, is the reversal of the strata. 

 In the Abberley Hills, where the effect is of the greatest intensity, the eruptive rocks 

 rising through the tilted deposits are at hand, to afford an explanation of the agency 

 employed in effecting so great a revolution. With the exceptions of the Brockhill 

 dyke (p. 186), and the rock near Martley, the trappean rocks of Abberley are not, 

 however, cut into by any natural or artificial excavations to show the points of contact, 

 though we can have no doubt that their eruption dismembered the strata, because the 

 various Silurian deposits occur in disjointed masses, at different heights on the sides of 



