Galway Field Club ConfereJice. 235 



with which members had carried out the requests of the conductor 

 throughout the excursion, and the great assistance they had given. The 

 unqualified success of this, the most elaborate Field Club excursion ever 

 carried out in Ireland, was in itself the best thanks that the organizer 

 could have. 



• The Chairman reminded members that specialists had been appointed 

 to prepare reports on each group of the fauna and flora, and requested 

 that all notes and specimens should be shown to them. Having refer- 

 red to the advisability of having Irish finds recorded in Ireland, and 

 drawn attention to the wonderful mixture of characteristic northern 

 and southern forms of life which the naturalists had observed in this 

 western district, he declared the conference concluded. 



WKDNESDAY, JUI.Y 17TH, &c. 

 On this morning the party broke up. While the majority of members 

 left for home, others proceeded to extend the investigations commenced 

 on the excursion. R. Standen, E. Collier and R. Welch spent two days 

 in collecting recent and subfossil shells and foraminifera at Roundstone. 

 Miss Knowles botanized at Oughterard. J. A. Audley and R. Lloyd 

 Praeger had a day at Roundstone, where they collected Erica Mackaii and 

 Naias flexilis in their recorded stations ; the latter then sailed to Aran- 

 more, where three days were spent in botanizing with the assistance of 

 Prof. Fitzgerald, the return being made in his company, via Lisdoon- 

 varna and Ballyvaughan. The work done on these further days being a 

 direct continuation of that accomplished on the excursion, the results 

 obtained are embodied in the reports which follow. 



II.— GEOLOGY. 



BY MISS SYDNEY M. THOMPSON. 



The magnificent scenery of the district comprised between Galway Bay, 

 the Atlantic, and Lough Corrib demonstrates what metamorphism can 

 do in the way of earth -building. The grand quartzite group of the 

 Twelve Bens, with their bare scarred peaks rising abruptly from the vast 

 flat plain that stretches westward to the Atlantic, display earth-folding 

 on a magnificent scale. The age of these quartzites and the schists that 

 occur with them is somewhat obscure ; the latter were at one time 

 supposed to be metamorphosed sedimentary rocks, but modern investiga- 

 tions have changed these opinions, and they are now considered to be 

 altered igneous rocks. ^ A very interesting section through these schists 

 was visited on the railway near Oughterard under the guidance of Mr. 

 Kirwan, whose able paper in the Irish Naturalist- shows an ilhistration 



^vSee Report of the Director-General of the Geol. Survey, 40M Report 

 Dept. of Science and Art (1893), p. 266, and 41J/ Report (1S94), p. 270. 

 'June, 1895, vol. iv., p. 151. 



