112 
SILURIA. 
[Chap. VI. 
Wenlock fossils, and one (the Rhynchonella Wilsoni) which, as we shall 
presently see, is most abundant in the highest Silurian division, or Ludlow 
rocks ; and thus in their relative position as well as in their fossils, the 
Woolhope and Radnorshire limestones are identical. 
The Silurian formations which range from the Malvern Hills and the 
Woolhope district to May and Huntley Hills in Gloucestershire exhibit the 
same general order of succession, accompanied, however, by modifications 
of the lithological and zoological distinctions of the lower member of the 
Wenlock formation, which it is right to notice. Instead of being the com- 
pact, hard, tough, and strong-bedded rock of Woolhope, it becomes on the 
western flank of May Hill a group of nodules and very irregular courses 
disseminated in shale, simply forming a rather more calcareous base of the 
Wenlock shale than what is seen under the Wenlock Edge and other places 
where similar nodules occur. At May Hill, as already shown, there is, 
indeed, an upward development from masses of Pentamerus (Upper 
Llandovery) sandstone beneath, into a series of interlaminated sandstones 
and shale, which assume, to a great extent, the fossil characters of the 
Lower Wenlock. In no portion of Britain, therefore, are the two forma- 
tions of Upper Llandovery rocks and Wenlock shale better linked together 
than in the Malvern and May Hill region. 
In the Malvern district the Woolhope limestone may be studied north 
of Storridge Earm, and north of Crumpend Hill, also at ( Ballard's quarry,' 
near the Wych. Dr. Holl remarks also upon an interesting fault on the 
road from West Malvern to Mathon Lodge, which " passes obliquely over 
both ends of the Woolhope limestone, so as to make it appear that there are 
two beds of limestone at this spot" *. It may also be seen in the picturesque 
valley of Netherton near Eastnor, dipping away from the Upper Llandovery 
beds of the Obelisk hill under the Wenlock shales and limestones. 
Mr. Symonds records a great thickness of shales, which he calls i Wool- 
hope shales/ as intercalated, in the Malvern tunnel, between the Llandovery 
rocks with Pentameri and the Woolhope limestone (the position of the 
Tarannon shales of the Government Surveyors). They are perfectly con- 
formable to the Llandovery beds and the overlying Woolhope limestone. 
Dr. Grindrod obtained from them a fine series of Trilobites and Shells, 
many of new species f. 
This tract, so elaborately described by Professor Phillips, was also care- 
fully studied by Sir Henry De la Beche himself, when the line of demarca- 
tion between the Lower and Upper Silurian rocks fixed upon by the 
Government Surveyors was made the same as that which had been origi- 
nally suggested in the ' Silurian System' J. On the west flank of the North 
Malverns, the sandstone with Pentamerus oblongus passes upwards into, 
and is interlaced with, subcalcareous bands, in which, as before said, these 
* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxi. p 95. t Quart. Journ. Gcol. Soc. vol. xvii. p. 158. 
I Sec Sil. Syst. p. 442 et seq. 
