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LI. Notice of the Discovery of the Plesiosaurus in Ireland. 

 By JAMES BRYCE, Jun. A.B.* 



IT is well known to geologists, that the oolites, that series 

 of rocks which, in England, intervenes between the new 

 red sandstone and the chalk, are almost entirely wanting in 

 Ireland. The only members of the formation which exist 

 there, are the lias and the mulatto or green-sand, and these 

 occupy but a very limited extent of surface. They appear in 

 the escarpment of the great basaltic area, which comprehends 

 all Antrim and half of Derry. Encircling it, the chalk, with 

 one or two exceptions, always underlies the basalt. The 

 mulatto generally accompanies it ; but the lias is frequently 

 absent. It occupies a narrow though unbroken zone from a 

 few miles south of Belfast, to two miles north of Same, a 

 distance of about twenty miles ; but in the remaining part of 

 the escarpment it occurs only in detached patches of very 

 small extent. Limited, however, as the formation is, it has 

 been but partially examined, and until within the last few 

 months it has not afforded any remains of the vertebrate ani- 

 mals, which have been found in such abundance in the same 

 formation in England. Within that time, some vertebrae of 

 the plesiosaurus have been discovered near Belfast. 



These remains were found in the black clay of the lias 

 which underlies the mulatto along the southern front of the 

 low hills which connect the Cave-hill with Carnmoney-hill, at 

 the distance of four miles north-east of Belfast. The stratum is 

 beautifully exposed in section in a chalk quarry within a few 

 perches of Carnmoney church ; in this quarry the vertebras 

 were found. Twelve of them were lying in a straight line in 

 groups of two or three together, which were separated from 

 one another by an interval of about a yard and a half, thus 

 showing that they were remote parts of the same vertebral 

 column. They were all carried off by the workmen ; and with 

 the exception of one, which after the strictest search was 

 recovered, they were all lost. Six more were afterwards 

 found, under such circumstances as to render it highly pro- 

 bable that they belonged to the same individual as the former. 

 These seven vertebrae are now deposited in the Museum of the 

 Belfast Academy f. 



Being acquainted with the discoveries of Sir Everard Home 

 and the Rev.W. D. Conybeare, I suspected that they belonged 



* Communicated by the Author. 



f They were presented to the Museum by Mr. J. H. Smythe of Carn- 

 money, to whom the credit of their discovery is due. 



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