Chap. V.] 
THE MALVERN HILLS. 
97 
limestone, constitutes the regular base of all the Upper Silurian rocks 
which dip away from it to the westward. On its eastern flank, on the 
contrary, the same rock is brought into abrupt contact (see Map) with 
the New Red Sandstone by that great longitudinal (north and south) fault 
which runs along the whole length of the Malvern and Abberley Hills *. 
In delineating with great precision the order of the strata as well as 
their flexures and breaks, Professor Phillips discovered f , on the west side 
of the Worcestershire Beacon, that one of the local conglomerates (Upper 
Llandovery, then called 'Caradoc'), charged with several characteristic 
fossils, contained also pebbles and fragments of the syenite and other 
eruptive rocks of the Malvern chain, against which the conglomerate rests 
in a highly inclined position. Hence it was evident that along this line 
there had been eruptions, which had left a shore or island of hard rock 
from which the conglomerate in question had been derived. In fact, 
looking further back, we see that the eruption at the White-leaved Oak 
and Chase End Hill, to which attention has been called, together with the 
consequent metamorphism of the Cambrian deposits, took place at a much 
more remote period, and that there the erupted matter traversed the 
ancient mass of the ridge before the oldest Silurian strata of the tract, 
namely the Hollybush Sandstone, had been formed. This sandstone 
and the Olenus-shales, both belonging to the ' Primordial Zone,' soon die 
out in their extension northward. Whatever may have been the succes- 
sive periods of the mutations to which the Malvern ridge has been subjected, 
it is clear that one considerable elevation of the chain took place after the 
accumulation of the Upper Landovery rocks, as proved by Prof. Phillips's 
discovery hereafter noticed. In short, the Malvern ridge had then been 
left to be acted upon by the sea, so as to furnish materials for the comple- 
tion of a younger deposit. 
The elevation of the Malvern Hills in a solid state, and probably at a later 
period, together with the folding back of the strata, so as partially to invert 
the order and place the Upper Llandovery grits over the Wenlock shale, 
and the latter over the limestone (a phenomenon first pointed out by Mr. 
Leonard Horner J as due to the uplift of the syenite, the crystalline nucleus 
of the hills), is of great interest, and such as occurs on a vast scale in the 
Alps and many other mountain -chains. 
* This fault is one of the longest that has been land's remarks on this great dislocation, Phil, 
traced in the British Isles. On its western side Mag. 1851, vol. ii. p. 358. 
the various members of the Silurian series above t Memoirs G-eol. Survey, vol. ii. p. 66. Miss 
enumerated are seen in some places to be over- Phillips made this discovery, 
lain by the Old Eed Sandstone. In other localities I This overthrow of the strata was noticed, and 
the Silurian rocks subside, and the Old and ISTew an excellent account of the mineral structure of 
Eed are in contact as between the Abberley and the Malvern Hills was first given, by Mr. Leonard 
Malvern Hills. In its range southwards, the fault Horner, in the G-eol. Trans., old series, vol. i. p. 281. 
is marked by a band of Permian conglomerates ; The nature and succession of the overthrown beds 
and still further to the south,or towardsMayHill, a were illustrated in detail by myself, 'Silurian 
thin zone of Coal-measures separates the New Eed System/ p. 423, and by Professor Phillips, Me- 
of Gloucester from the Old Eed of Hereford. See moirs G-eol. Survey, vol. ii. p. 67 et seq. ; and, lastly, 
Sheets 43 & 55 of the Geological Survey Map, in Symonds, Lambert, and Holl have added much 
the last of which the relations of other and oblique to our knowledge of details and of the probable 
transverse faults to this great longitudinal fracture history of the range, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 
are clearly laid down. See also Mr. Hugh Strick- vol?, xvi., xvii. & xxi. 
n 
