1 12 
PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 
1919 
with little erosive pxnver, now flow in the valley in opposite 
directions from a low 7 watershed near the Herefordshire Beacon. 
The diversion of the Teme through the faulted rocks of the 
Osebury Gap, below Knightsford Bridge, was probably assisted, 
if not initiated, by the cutting back of a short tributary of the 
Severn, the old channel becoming the new course of the Teme. 
That part of the Teme which now lies within the area under 
review 7 runs partly through a narrow valley much liable to 
floods, hence the probability that most of the ancient gravels 
have been rearranged or otherwise modified in recent times. 
The flints and Jurassic fossils in the gravels may have been 
derived from rocks formerly extending over the district, or 
carried by pre-Glacial streams from North Shropshire where 
they occur in gravels at Wollerton ( 29 , p. 483 ; 130 , p. 134). 
Over the greater part of the Malvern area there are clays, 
sands, and gravels derived from the disintegrated rocks of the 
Range. There is a record of “ stiff red till, or boulder clay, 
wdiich contained Northern Drift pebbles and angular erratics ” 
in an excavation at the Imperial Hotel ( 188 , p. 30) ; but I 
find that the angular erratics are fine-grained Permian grits 
of local origin, and that the clay is a decomposition product 
of Malvernian rocks. 
In the valley between the Malvern and Ledbury Hills 
there is a deposit of rubbly gravel and sandy clay, with a proved 
depth of 16 feet, the greater part of which has been carried from 
the adjoining slopes, possibly into a small lake, during the Ice 
Age. 
There are no signs of a post-Cretaceous marine submergence 
or of invasion by the great ice-sheets in any part of the Malvern 
area. Snow 7 and ice may have accumulated in favourable 
positions, and the large blocks of Malvernian, Uriconian, and 
Silurian rocks that occur on the higher ground of Castlemorton 
Common were no doubt brought dowm by floods and moving 
masses of snow, and perhaps ice, from accumulations in the 
“ Gullet ” and “ Silurian ” passes, which are situated on the 
south and north sides respectively of the Swinyard Hill. 
Mr. Arthur Bennett informs me that these are the only passes 
through v 7 hich boulders of the Silurian rocks, w'hich are in situ 
