8 The Irish Mahiralist. January, 



vol. Iviii., 1902, pp. 226-266) have reported on the complex and 

 attractive district of Clogher Head in the Dingle promontor3^ 

 The volcano was here of Wenlock and Ludlow age, and is 

 thus almost unique in our islands. The beds are exposed in 

 a series of fairly accessible coast-sections ; but the prevalent 

 southerly dip is at first deceptive. The authors trace an over- 

 folded anticline between Cooshaun and Clogher Head, with 

 consequent inversion of the beds at Clogher Head. There a 

 thrust has pressed the whole series up over Old Red Sand- 

 stone ; after which we begin the series again, but in correct 

 order, down from a Ludlow horizon into the Ferriter's Cove 

 beds and the barren Smerwick Beds of the extreme north. 



The fossils of the Ferriter's Cove beds present a mingling of 

 Llandovery and Wenlock forms ; above them on the south is 

 the Ludlow horizon, which has not been exactly located in the 

 Ludlow series, as it stands revealed in Shropshire. Hence 

 (p. 266) the lower part of the overlying Dingle series may 

 possibly be of Upper Ludlow age. We are glad, however, that 

 the authors retain the mass of the Dingle Beds as Lower 

 Devonian. To deny, as Mr. Kinahan has done, the existence 

 of Devonian (or true Old Red Samlstone) beds in Ireland is 

 simply straining to breaking-point the arguments which had 

 attracted Jukes shortly before his death. Had that eminent 

 observer lived a few years longer, he would doubtless, in face 

 of researches on the Devonian of the Continent, have with- 

 drawn from so untenable a position. 



We confess that we look back with affection on a little sketch 

 made by us at Ballyferriter in 1895, and thereafter prudently 

 concealed, in which, while adopting the great S-curve of the 

 strata, we tried to throw in another fold on the north, and to 

 read the Smerwick Beds as a repetition of the unfossiliferous 

 Dingle Beds of the south. But this, based on a suggestion of 

 Jukes, would have needed an unconformity between the Dingle 

 Beds and the Silurians, whereby the Lucllows had become 

 removed, except at Clogher Head. We naturally prefer to 

 accept the reading now given, after such careful observation, 

 by Messrs. Reynolds and Gardiner (pp. 228 and 263), whereby 

 the Smerwick Beds are considered as the oldest in the district. 

 The great bands of volcanic tuff, with bombs some 20 cm. 

 across, are so fresh in places, standing out like walls in the 



