1903. Coi^K. — Recent Irish Geology. 7 



RECE)NT CHANGKS OF I.EVKL ON THK NORTH-WEST RDGEi 



OF EUROPE. 



The untiring and versatile Professor at Kristiania, Dr. W. 

 C. Brogger, has issued {^Norges geologiske undei sbgelse No. 31, 

 *'0m de senglaciale og postglaciale nivaforandringer i 

 Kristianiafeltet") a volume of 731 pages, dealing with the 

 rising and falling of southern Norway during the later glacial 

 ages. An excellent summar>^ in English is appended. The 

 work of the Rockall expedition of the Ro5'al Irish Academy is 

 quoted ; and the occurrence of shell-banks of shallow-water 

 species at great depths in the arctic North Atlantic area is held 

 to prove (pp. 97 and 683) that the sea-floor has sunk 2,600 

 metres ( 8,500 feet) since the time of the greatest extension of 

 ice-sheets across Europe. Such move-ments of course concern 

 the land also, though in different degrees in different places ; 

 and it is obvious that a powerful weapon is here put into the 

 hands of those who hesitate to deduce the behaviour of the 

 ice-sheets in or near Ireland from the present relations of sea 

 and land. Dr. Brogger's opinions are .strengthened by a letter 

 from Dr. Nansen, and go far to bury the last relics of the 

 curiously popular but ungeological theory as to the perman- 

 ence of ocean-basins. The paper is of value to every worker 

 in glacial geology in Europe, by reason of the nineteen plates 

 illustrating all^the molluscan species of the faunas dealt with. 

 In the Geological Magazine for October, 1902, p. 479, Mr. 

 J. Smith, of Monkredding, states that persons *' acting under 

 his directions " have found marine shells in boulder-clay four 

 miles north-east of Muirkirk, in Ayrshire. Muirkirk lies on a 

 high inland moor, and the bed is 1,330 feet above sea- 

 level. It is not clear with what object Mr. Smith *' directed" 

 ' his friends to discover marine shells ; but the further discus- 

 sion of the deposit will be looked forward to by workers 

 among Irish shell-bearing drifts, as bearing on the vexed 

 question of submergence in particular. 



THE SII.URIAN BEDS OF WESTERN KERRY. 



Continuing their revision of the areas where Silurian strata 

 are associated in Ireland with contemporaneous volcanic action, 

 Messrs. Gardiner and Reynolds {Quart. Journ. Geol Soc. Londoii^ 



