SUCCESSION OF STRATA AT MAY HILL. 



443 



casts of characteristic shells, the beds being quite undistinguishable from those described 

 in Shropshire. (See p. 216, et seq.) 



The Caradoc sandstone of this hill, including its south-eastern prolongation, Huntley 

 Hill, &c, throws off for some distance bands of younger Silurian strata on each side. 

 On the north-eastern face, these strata prolonged from Bistley ridge, are spread over 

 Rawtrings Wood near Huntley, folding round and covering the grit and sandstone of 

 Plantation Hill. These are only thin courses of impure limestone and shale, with 

 shells of the Wenlock shale, and they are best seen in the descent to Glass-house Green, 

 where they are flanked on one side by the clays of the Old Red, and on another by the 

 New Red Sandstone. 



The ridges on the western face of the hill are the prolongations of the calcareous zone 

 of Aston Ingham, which expanding as it approaches May Hill, exhibits, for three or 

 four miles, a regular ascending order, from the underlying Caradoc Sandstone, through 

 the Wenlock and Ludlow formations, to the Old Red Sandstone. This succession is so 

 perfectly exhibited on the sides of each of the great roads which, traversing the central 

 ridge, descend into the vale of Longhope on the west, that I specially invite attention to 

 the section (PL 36. f. 13.) as exhibiting a good development of the Caradoc Sandstone, 

 and particularly of its passage upwards into the Wenlock limestone, through argilla- 

 ceous and calcareous strata of great thickness. These beds of passage between the 

 sandstone and the shale, contain a large proportion of calcareous matter. Where the 

 lower strata become flaglike, and consist of thin courses of impure limestone, they 

 are the equivalents of the central limestone of Woolhope, and, therefore, the up- 

 permost part of the Lower Silurian Rocks. All the overlying shale, filled in great 

 measure with concretions of argillaceous limestone, must be classed with the Wenlock 

 formation. 



The Ludlow Rocks form a second ledge, in the descent from Hobbs to the valley of 

 Longhope, where, although they only represent that formation in miniature, their upper 

 portion is marked by the Leptcena lata, and other characteristic shells. A band of 

 impure sandy limestone, charged with the Terebratula Wilsoni, and consequently the 

 equivalent of the Aymestry limestone, occurs near the centre of the ridge. 



In the transverse section from Dursley Cross to the valley of Longhope, the lower beds dip 

 away from the nucleus of May Hill at angles of 45° and 50° to the W.S.W., the dip decreasing in 

 the outer ledges, so that the Wenlock limestone is inclined 35°, and the Ludlow rocks only 20° 

 towards the same point. (See Section, PI. 36. f. 13.) 



A parallel transverse section from Little London, at the side of Huntley Hill, to the valley of 

 Longhope, across the end of Blaisdon Edge, shows the same succession, with still more instructive 

 examples of the red beds of Caradoc sandstone, filled with casts of many distinguishing fossils. 

 The ledge of Wenlock limestone can be followed with precision, standing out by itself with a 

 valley on each side, just as in the Wenlock Edge or in the vale of Woolhope ; the same soft shale 

 having been similarly denuded. As in other places, these masses, after preserving a straight 



