Prof. W. King's Notes on Permian Fossils. 259 



the probability is, that it immediately overlies a series of workable 

 seams of coal. Dr. Smith, " the Father of English geology/^ 

 strongly urged on the " viewers '' of Newcastle to sink through 

 the magnesian (Permian) limestone of an adjoining county, 

 being fully convinced they would come on as good coal as 

 occurred in Northumberland. His advice was taken, but not 

 without considerable mistrust ; and the result is, that Durham 

 has become one of the principal seats of the colliery trade in 

 Britain. 



The North of England, with its valuable treasures of coal, 

 may yet find a powerful rival in the North of Ireland. A few 

 years since, there was much uncertainty prevailing as to the age 

 of a magnesian limestone occurring at Cultra, near Hollywood, 

 on the south shore of Belfast Lough, some referring it to the 

 Permian system*, others to the Carboniferous f. There is now, 

 however, no doubt on the point, since all its organic remains are 

 unmistakeably Permian {. 



But Cultra is not the only locality in the North of Ireland 

 where the Permian system is developed ; for in September last 

 it was my lot to discover, in the neighbourhood of Ardtrea in 

 county Tyrone, another deposit of magnesian limestone precisely 

 similar to that occurring at Cultra, and charged with undoubted 

 Permian fossils §. It now only remains for the colliery engineer 

 to sink his boring rods through the magnesian limestone of 

 these localities to ascertain if they contain the usual underlying 

 coal-measures. 



Enough has been stated to show that every particular relating 

 to Permian palaeontology ought to be carefully noted. 



Although the fossils of the Permian system, as developed in 

 Germany and England, have long been known through the 

 researches of Schlotheim, Sedgwick, Phillips and others, yet, 



* Vide a paper " On the Magnesian Limestone of Hollywood and its 

 associated Rocks," by Mr. James Bryce, in vol. i. of the Journal of the 

 Geol. Soc. of Dublin. Mr. M'Adam expressed himself in favour of the 

 same opinion in a paper which he read at the Belfast Meeting of the 

 British Association. 



t Vide a paper by Dr. Griffith " On the Lower portion of the Carbo- 

 niferous Series of Ireland," in the Brit. Assoc. Report for 1843, p. 45, &c., 

 in which the Cultra fossils are identified by M'Coy, according to Mr. Kelly 

 {vide Journ. of the Geol. Soc. of Dublin, vol. vii. p. 23), with Devonian 

 species. 



X This fact was first announced by myself in a paper " On the Permian 

 Fossils of Cultra," which I read at the Belfast Meeting of the British Asso- 

 ciation; vide Repor tfor 1852, p. 53. 



§ A paper of mine on this discovery was read at the December meeting 

 of the Dublin Geological Society. I expect it will be published in the next 

 Number of the * Dublin Natural History Review.' 



17* 



