A. Watkins, Photo.

bed itself is by no means easy to map. The division consists of irregular concretions mixed with shale, and, as observed by Murchison, although nearly as thick as in Shropshire, is never so pure. Symonds found Sieberella galeata to take the place of Conchidium Knighti in this district, and Murchison did not notice the latter fossil. The beds have been quarried at Dog Hill, and alongside the road at Chance's Pitch. At the latter place and at Evendine, Leptona depressa is a common shell. A boring at Schweppe's WaterWorks, left off in the Aymestry Limestone, proved brine-water, but the presence of the salt has not been satisfactorily accounted for.134 Phillips has recorded the section at Hales-End in the Cradley district, where the limestone-consisting of nodular rock in the lower portion, and shale and concretions in the upper-is seen with the Upper Ludlow Shales above and the Lower Ludlow Shales below. A layer made up of specimens of Wilsonia Wilsoni occurs in the upper beds— the "Passage-Beds " Phillips called them.

THE UPPER LUDLOW SHALES.-The beds cover a considerable area to the east of Ledbury. Phillips remarks that the basementbeds are difficult to separate from some of the shaly "Passage-Beds" of the Aymestry series. The middle portion contains many limestone-nodules and is replete with shells. The upper beds are equally fossiliferous, and become increasingly arenaceous and of a littoral facies as they are traced upwards. In the roads about Dog Hill there are fair sections of the beds.

136

North

G. H. Piper discovered the Ludlow Bone-Bed in the railway cutting at Ledbury, and again below the bridge between Reddings Hole and the Frith." 135 Graptolithus ludensis has been found in the Ledbury tunnel, but such remains appear to be rare in the Malvern district." Above Frith Farm the beds are full of fossils. wards they may be traced along the steep hillside to Coomb Hill, thence round to Barton Court and Oldcastle to Evendine, at all of which places the transition into the Temeside Series may be observed. The best section, however, is that at Hale's-End, in the Cradley area, where the complete succession from the Lower Ludlow into the Old Red is to be seen.18

137

TEMESIDE STAGE.-In the Malvern district the Temeside Beds have been exposed at several places. The chief section is at the entrance to the Ledbury tunnel (plate II). At the time the line was constructed in 1860, the section was considered the finest of these particular deposits in England, and was described

in detail by Symonds.138

Above the Upper-Ludlow Shales, in ascending order, come (1) Downton Sandstone, with remains of Pterygotus and Lingula, 9 feet, (2) red and mottled marls and thin sandstones with Lingula and remains of Pteraspis, 210 feet, (3) grey shales with Pterygoti and Cephalaspis Murchisoni, 8 feet, (4) purple shales with thin sandy beds and fragments of Lingula, 34 feet, (5) grey marl passing into red and grey marl with bluish-grey rocks with Auchenaspis Salteri, Auch. Egertoni,1 Pterygotus, Cephalaspis, and Lingula (Auchenaspis-Grits), 20 feet, and then strata which pass conformably into red marly beds with white and reddish sandstones that have yielded remains of Pterygotus, Pteraspis, and Cephalaspis. It was from the "Old Red Sandstone" immediately above the Auchenaspis-Grits that Didymaspis Grindrodi, Lankester,

came.140

Piper examined the sections at the time the alterations were made at the tunnel-mouth in 1882-83, and has contributed remarks upon the subject. He found the Temeside Shales to be 400 feet thick. Remains of Cephalaspis were much more abundant here than even in the Ludlow railway-cutting, where Auchenaspis was discovered about the same time as Brooks procured the first specimen from Ledbury in 1858. Brooks, however, only obtained the heads of the fish; it was not until 1882 that Piper" found specimens with a few body-scales attached. Later he obtained three tolerably perfect fish, but they came from a stratum much lower down than that from which the first specimen was procured.

Along the borders of the Silurian tract exposures of the Passage-Beds" may be seen at many places. Downton Sandstone, which varies in thickness in this district (according to Phillips, from 10 to 100 feet) has been worked on the west side of Raycombe and Raffnal Woods.142

At Brockhill the junction of the Silurian and Devonian Systems is exposed, and Phillips has recorded details of this wellknown section,143 but it was the Rev. F. Dyson who was the first to find the Ludlow Bone-Bed here.145 Salter also examined the section, and found at the base sandstone full of Rhynchonella nucula, Chonetes lata, Leptana lævigata, etc. Above are hard thick-bedded cal

138 Q.J.G.S., xvi (1860), p. 193; Edin. New Phil. Journ., 1859, p. 232; see also Q.J.G.S., xvii. (1861), p. 154; Symonds in Woodward's Monograph, pp. 99-100; Records of the Rocks," p. 202.

66

139 R. Lankester, Monogr. on the Fishes of the Old Red Sandstone," Pal. Soc., p. 57.

140 Geol. Mag., iv. (1867), p. 152.

141 Trans. Woolhope Nat. F.C., 1883 (1890), pp. 17-18, id., 1884 (1890),

pp. 136-138; id., 1895-97 (1898), pp. 310-313.

142 Mem. Geol. Surv., ii. pt. 1 (1848), p. 100.

143 Id., p. 97.

144 Edin. New Phil. Journ., 1856, p. 172.

145 See Symonds, Trans. Malvern Nat. F.C., pt. 2 (1853-70), p. 8.

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careous sandstones and shales with Chonetes lata and Rhynchonella nucula; and then the Bone-Bed-" a series of calcareous nodules, filled with the before-named species and bearing on its surface coprolitic masses and nodules." To the Bone-Bed succeeds the Downton Sandstone, the lower part of which consists of soft and thin-bedded layers of rock, and the upper of more solid. Platyschisma helicites is common near the base and Lingula cornea is another not infrequent fossil. The overlying beds Salter thought might represent the Kington building-stones from which so many Pterygoti and Pteraspides have been obtained, but from his notes. they would seem to belong rather to the Temeside Shales. Salter was the first to find the Ludlow Bone-Bed cropping out in the hillside immediately behind Hale's-End Farm, near Stifford's Bridge.146

(c) WOOLHOPE DISTRICT.-The Silurian rocks forming this inlier occupy a pear-shaped tract, the broad end of which is directed. to the north-east. The major axis is at least 10 miles in length, striking north-north-west and south-south-east, while the minor axis is at right angles to this and measures about 4 miles.

147

The genesis of the "Woolhope Dome," as it is termed by geologists, probably dates from that period of flexuring and fracturing which intervened between the time of formation of the "older" and Upper Coal-Measures. There is no doubt that the strata now uplifted and dipping away in all directions from the central mass of May-Hill Sandstone were once horizontal. They have been thrown into their present position, Mr. T. Mellard Reade thinks, by peripheral pressure, for when so affected they could only find relief in bulging upwards and forming a great pyriform dome. The top of this dome has long been removed, and the surface of very diverse stratal composition that was laid bare has been subjected to differential denudation during untold ages. 14 The results compel admiration. Standing on the vantage ground of Adam's Rocks and looking over this great "Valley of Elevation," as Murchison termed it, to the south-south-east is seen the rolling, wooded, May-Hill-Sandstone tract called the Haugh Wood, flanked by the Woolhope Limestone, and followed by the broad level expanse where the soft Wenlock Shales crop out. Then comes the notched ridge of Wenlock Limestone, which is separated from the Aymestry Limestone that forms the outer chain of high ground which borders and overlooks the whole of this singular district, by a valley excavated in the Lower Ludlow Shales.

Mr. Mellard Reade's explanation of the origin of the Woolhope Dome as being due to peripheral pressure may also be expressed in

146 Id., p. II.

147 Proc. Cotteswold Nat. F.C., xiv., pt. 3 (1903), pp. 258-259; Trans. Woolhope Nat. F.C., 1902-1904 (1905), pp. 32-33.

148 See C. Callaway, Proc. Cotteswold Nat. F.C., xiv., pp. 257-258.