to Connamara and Joyce's Country, Ireland. 121 



strong muscular stomach, resembling the gizzard of birds. 

 It is generally considered to be a variety of the common 

 species (>Salmo Fario). (See Jenyns's Manual of Vertebrate 

 Animals, p. 425.) 



At about three miles before reaching Oughterard, the road 

 is carried over a natural bridge formed of carboniferous lime- 

 stone. By following the stream from this spot, for rather 

 more than half a mile, the geologist will be gratified by seeing 

 a most curious succession of natural arches, apparently form- 

 ing part of a once continuous cavern through which the river 

 flowed. The fields on both sides of the stream, judging from 

 the abrupt depressions of the surface which occur in many 

 places, are probably supported by a succession of similar 

 caverns. This singular structure appears to terminate at a point 

 which is well marked by a fine old castellated tower in pretty 

 good preservation. This building is very interesting from its 

 architecture, but still more so from its situation, being built 

 over the river, upon the last and loftiest of these natural 

 arches. Judging from the state of some of its outworks, it 

 appears not improbable that this castle was built before the 

 surface of the land near to it had sunk in the manner de- 

 scribed above. The river must then have been quite hidden, 

 and the site of the castle have appeared as a slight elevation 

 in a flat country. At a short distance beyond the natural 

 bridge, and close to the road, a small quarry of black marble 

 is worked in the carboniferous limestone. 



Oughterard is pleasantly situated near the shore of Lough 

 Corrib, upon a small river, which, just above the town, is 

 broken by a succession of rapids nearly approaching in cha- 

 racter to a waterfall. Near the centre of the town stands a 

 new and handsome Roman Catholic chapel, just below which 

 the upper bank of the river has a highly interesting structure, 

 the limestone of which it is formed presenting the appearance 

 of half an elliptical arch over the water, of which the other 

 part has been destroyed by the action of the stream. Here 

 the Dabce N c/<z ^polifolia (MenzieszV* jsolifolia) first shows itself 

 in its full beauty, ornamenting every dry rocky spot of ground 

 with its large elegant flowers and conspicuous foliage. It may 

 be as well to observe, once for all, that this plant first appears 

 at the distance of a few miles to the east of Oughterard, in 

 very small quantity, but is plentiful throughout all the country 

 to the west of that place, as far as the Atlantic. 



In the neighbourhood of Oughterard, the banks of Lough 

 Corrib are quite devoid of grandeur, being bounded by a 

 vast extent of bog, out of which rise a few low rocky hills, 

 partially cultivated : still, an expanse of water, eight miles in 



