'GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF DUBLIN. 107 



Old Red Sandstone of former days, as just stated, has been cnt away 

 from its lower part, and a slice of the New Red Sandstone stuck upon it 

 above. In this change two of the greatest chasms, the most striking 

 boundaries that Nature made between her groups are totally disre- 

 garded, that is, the sedimentary unconformability at the bottom of the 

 Old Red conglomerate, and the sedimentary unconformability at the top 

 of the Coal-measures. The old natural Carboniferous system is broken 

 up, and now forms parts of two new unnatural systems. Any of the 

 three new lines made by this change, as boundaries of formations, does 

 not agree with the boundaries made by nature. They are all artificial. 

 Other sciences are improving every day. Geology appears to be retro- 

 grading. It is to be hoped still that the Carboniferous system will be 

 restored to what it was before the recent alterations, and that it will 

 recover this fit of illness, brought upon it by too much attention from 

 over-zealous doctors. 



I have before alluded to the desire that exists among geologists of 

 eminence to have the honour of founding new systems. The Devonian 

 system, and the Old Red Sandstone (in Herefordshire, in England), are 

 two of those ; the Calp, and the Yellow Sandstone (in Ireland), two 

 others ; and those new systems, or subdivisions, are some of the results 

 of the recent alterations. 



Of the Devonian system I expressed my views in a paper read in 

 this Society last year. I endeavoured on that occasion to show that 

 there is no Devonian system in Ireland — no intermediate group between 

 the Carboniferous and Silurian systems. Every rock and band of rock 

 about the position where that system might be expected falls easily 

 into either the Carboniferous system above, including, of course, its Old 

 Red Sandstone, or the Silurian below. 



I find that my views, derived wholly from Irish data, agree with 

 those of Professor Sedgwick, himself one of the authors of the Devonian 

 System, and above whom no one stands higher in this science. He says, 

 in the Introduction to the " British Paleozoic Fossils," p. 23, in speaking 

 of the Devonian : — "In Devon and Cornwall the above series has no 

 base ; aud we are without any evidence as to the beds which are below 

 the lowest Devonian group." He is right. It is no doubt the same in 

 England and Ireland. Here we have it not at all ; it is a thing of the 

 imagination ; there it is a baseless fabric. It is to be regretted that so 

 much pains were expended by two of the most able of British geologists 

 on a country penetrated with granite protrusions, and broken up by the 

 faults and dislocations consequent on them. Had half the pains been 

 bestowed on a good paleozoic country, such as Ireland, every fragment 

 of the earth's crust in Devon and Cornwall could afterwards, by com- 

 bining lithological character and fossils, be put into its proper place 

 without confusion or difficulty. 



The Old Red Sandstone of Herefordshire, though not in Ireland, is 

 too closely allied to my subject to be passed over unnoticed. It is a 

 matter on which I have often thought ; but, for want of opportunity of 

 such examinations as would be satisfactory to myself, I can only speak 



