TRANSACTIONS OP THE SECTIONS. 8S 



oiisly been regarded as the base of the fossiliferous rocks of Scotland. The purple 

 grits, which form the axis, have a continuous E.N.E and W.S.W. course. On the 

 north side the strata dip N.N.W., and on the south side S.S.E. 



On the Geology of the Dingle Promontory., Ireland. 

 By Professor Harkness, F.G.S. 



The county of Kerry is for the most part occupied by Devonian strata, and good 

 sections of them are seen on the coast between Slea Head at the north entrance 

 into Dingle Bay and Sibyl head, the southern point of Tralee Bay. Devonian strata 

 are not, however, the exclusive beds in the interval occupied by these points, for at 

 Donquin and Ferriters cove deposits of a different mineral nature make their 

 appearance, and these abound in upper Silurian fossils. Both on the north and 

 south side of the Silurian areas, and also in the space which separates them, there 

 occur deposits of purple slate overlaid by conglomerates ; and those on the south 

 side of the Silurians dip south at the same angle with the latter formation, and on 

 the north side they appear to pass under the Silurians also, at the same dip. This 

 mode of occurrence seems to result from rolling of the strata, the deposits being 

 pushed over towards the north. The sequence of strata in this district appears to 

 be perfect from the upper Silurians below through some strata appertaining to the 

 Devonians above ; and in this portion of Ireland we have as yet the only beds which 

 have been recognized as upper Silurian in Ireland. 



On the Meridional and Symmetrical Structure of the Globe, its Superficial 

 Changes, and the Polarity oj all Terrestrial Operations. By Evan 

 Hopkins, C.E., F.G.S. 



On the Gold-bearing Districts of the World. By E. Hopkins, C.E., P.G.S. 



Mr. Hopkins's paper contained the results of his observations on the auriferous 

 districts of the world, in which he stated that gold was found only in the primary 

 rocks, and chiefly in quartz, because, when the gold was precipitated, as it were, in 

 nature, the quartz was that with which its particles most readily mixed. Gold 

 might be found in all primary rocks of a meridional structure, where crystalline 

 sands predominate. It was a curious fact, that gold might often be found at the 

 roots of large trees, because the roots having assimilated for nourishment the other 

 materials, left the gold as an indigestible surface behind. 



On the Formations of Dalmatia. By Signer Lanza. 



On the Excavation of certain River Channels in Scotland. 

 By C. Maclaren, F.G.S, 



On the less-known Fossil Floras of Scotland. By Hugh Miller. 



Scotland has its four fossil Floras ; its Flora of the Old Red Sandstone, its car- 

 boniferous Flora, its oolitic Flora, and that Flora of apparently tertiary age, of 

 which His Grace the Duke of Argyll found so interesting a fragment under the 

 thick basalt beds and trap tuflFs of Mull. Of these, the only one adequately known 

 to the geologist is the gorgeous Flora of the coal-measures, probably the richest, 

 in at least individual plants, which the world has yet seen. The others are all but 

 wholly unknown. How much of the lost may yet be recovered I know not ; but the 

 circumstances that two great Floras — remote predecessors of the existing one — that 

 once covered with their continuous mantle of green the dry land of what is now 

 Scotland, should be represented but by a few coniferous fossils, a few cycadaceous 

 fronds, a few ferns and club-mosses, must serve 'to show what mere fragments of 

 the past history of our country we have yet been able to recover from the rocks, and 

 how very much in the work of exploration and discovery still remains for us to do, 



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