DIVERGENT STRIKE IN ROCKS OF THE SAME AGE. 



569 



Long Mountain and Breidden Hills E.N.E. and W.S.W. $ and in the country west of 

 Welsh Pool north-east and south-west. Hence it appears, that in a zone not exceeding 

 thirty miles in width, ridges composed of the same materials, and inclosing the same 

 organic remains, have been elevated upon lines, which, so far from being parallel, 

 would actually meet, if prolonged for a few miles. (See Chapter 21. p. 267.) 



Should it, however, be conceded, that along the Welsh frontiers, the aberrations 

 from what may be called parallelism are not very numerous, what shall we say of 

 those Silurian Rocks which occur on the eastern side of Herefordshire, and in the 

 central English counties ? The axis of their elevation in the Abberley and Malvern 

 Hills is from north to south, sometimes even N.N.W. and S.S.E., with a partial ex- 

 ception near Ledbury. The same rocks in the district to the north of Dudley, together 

 with the coal and overlying deposits, have, it is true, been thrown into the old north- 

 east and south-west direction, in the range extending by Wallsall; but the very same 

 deposits, where affected by the great outburst of the Rowley trap, strike from N.N.W. 

 to S.S.E. The last direction is parallel to the volcanic range of the Clent and Lickey 

 Hills, which occupies in part the place of the Lower New Red Sandstone ; while close 

 at hand, and on the same parallel, trap rock of precisely similar character is detected, 

 which at a much earlier period must have served as the elevating nucleus of the Lower 

 Lickey, and which before the formation of the coal measures, had converted the Cara- 

 doc sandstone into the well-known quartz rock of that curious, miniature mountain. 

 On the other hand, elevations have taken place along the same parallel, or rather 

 radiating from the southern end of the Lickey, subsequent even to the accumulation 

 of the red marl and lias, as proved by the line of dislocation affecting those deposits, 

 which producing the Ridge Way, have caused the great longitudinal faults of Craycombe 

 and Evesham, and left several patches of lias in Warwickshire in isolated positions. 

 (See Map.) 



The forces which impressed this direction from N.N.W. to S.S.E. upon the rocks 

 of Worcestershire and Warwickshire, have also operated through a large tract of Lei- 

 cestershire ; for the Cambrian System of Charnwood Forest has a single anticlinal, 

 which strikes from N.N.W. to S.S.E. ; and the axis of the adjacent coal-field of Nun- 

 eaton has a similar direction ; and hence we learn that this tract belongs to the same 

 system of dislocation as the Rowley and Lickey Hills 1 , 



Again, though the major axis of the Silurian group at Usk is from N.N.E. to S.S.W., 

 this agreement with the Welsh strike is more than counterbalanced by the remarkable 

 anticlinal, proceeding from the Tortworth district on the S.S.E., and terminating in 

 the valley of elevation of Woolhope on the N.N. W. Here we have an axis of not less 



1 Professor Sedgwick, who has recently determined these interesting points concerning Charnwood Forest 

 and Nuneaton, further informs me, that the principal movements must have taken place after the Lower New 

 Red Sandstone was, at least partially, deposited, the phenomena thus agreeing with those described around 

 Dudley. (See Chapters 35 and 36.) 



