22 



NATURE 



[November 7, 1895 



III. Ireland. 



In pursuance of the work described in the last two Reports, 

 Messrs. Kilroe and McHenry have during the past year advanced 

 over a large tract of the difficult ground between Clew Bay and 

 a line drawn from Clifden to Oughterard. Evidence obtained 

 by Mr. Kilroe leads to the conclusion that the Croagh Patrick 

 quartzite and its equivalent further south does not belong to the 

 " Dalradian" series, but is a part of the Llandovery formation. 

 It will thus be necessary to colour as ordinary Silurian a con- 

 siderable tract of ground which has hitherto been regarded as 

 composed of metamorphosed rocks. The rocks have undergone 

 a certain amount of metamorphism, but never enough to destroy 

 the clear evidence of their original clastic character. 



The investigation by Mr. McHenry of the tract of ground 

 between Clifden and Oughterard has resulted in the collection of 

 a body of evidence which seems to disprove the existence of any 

 Archaean rocks, at least within the area examined. What have 

 been supposed to be rocks of that early age are believed by Mr. 

 McHenry to consist of a complex series of intrusive masses which 

 have pierced the schists, limestones and quartzites of southern 

 Connemara. His survey during last year in that region has con- 

 vinced him that the whole of these rocks, igneous and sedi- 

 mentary, are the equivalents in age and petrographical character 

 of the eruptive and metamorphic (Dalradian) rocks of Mayo, 

 Sligo, Leitrim, Donegal, and other parts of Ireland. 



Early in March the Director General took the opportunity to 

 make with Mr. Peach and Mr. McHenry an examination of 

 some of the ground around Pomeroy in Tyrone, where there 

 seemed reason to believe that evidence might be found of the 

 occurrence of a marginal strip of Lower Silurian rocks like 

 those which have now been found to flank the southern border 

 of the Scottish Highlands. On a former occasion he had 

 observed among these rocks a remarkable group of basic lavas 

 and tuffs, but could see no evidence to warrant their separation 

 from the chloritic schists to the north of them. Recent map- 

 ping along the borders of the Scottish Highlands, however, 

 having shown that a similar group of rocks in that region could 

 be recognised as probably of Lower Silurian age, it seemed 

 desirable that the Tyrone district should be re-examined. The 

 result has been so far highly satisfactory. In company with 

 Mr. Peach, who has also visited the Scottish localities, the 

 Director General spent some days in traversing the Tyrone 

 sections, and had no difficulty in recognising the close similarity 

 of the rocks there exposed to those along the Highland border. 

 The igneous rocks form a strip of country about twenty- 

 four miles long with a maximum of nine miles in breadth, 

 lying between the Silurian and Old Red Sandstone rocks on 

 the south, and the crystalline schists on the north. They 

 include diabase and porphyrite lavas, tuffs, and intrusive sheets. 

 The lavas are interleaved with cherts and jaspers exactly like 

 those associated with the igneous rocks at the edge of the High- 

 lands. Apparently overlying the volcanic masses come dark 

 shales, which might yield graptolites, likewise pale grits and 

 occasional thin limestones. In Scotland the cherts enclose 

 Radiolaria, and though these organisms svere not detected in any 

 of the Tyrone sections on the occasion of this visit, it may be 

 confidently anticipated that they will be found on further and 

 more detailed search. The radiolarian cherts of the Highland 

 border, with their lavas and tuffs, appear to be a prolongation of 

 those which with the same characters lie in the Arenig formation 

 of southern Scotland, where they extend over a wide area. The 

 importance of the discovery of a zone of Arenig rocks along the 

 edge of the schists in the Highlands and in the north of Ireland 

 will be obvious to all those who have followed the dis- 

 cussion regarding the structure and age of these crystalline 

 schists. 



While engaged in the preparation of the " Handbook of the 

 Survey Collections," Mr. Watts had occasion to make many 

 critical examinations of the rocks in the cases of the Museum. 

 Among the new facts which this investigation has established, 

 the following may be noticed : — The wide extent of lampro- 

 phyres in the north of Ireland ; the occurrence of perlitic cracks 

 in the quartz of the Tardree rhyolite ; the remarkable replace- 

 ment of olivine by tremolite, which eventually develops into 

 idiomorphic crystals in the picrite of Glendalough ; the inter- 

 growth of biotite and hornblende in the Crossdoney granite, and 

 the contact metamorphism around that rock. 



Among the pebbles in the Drift of the east of Ireland, pieces 

 of a granophyre, with the mineral riebeckite, are not infrequent. 

 Prof Sollas has been fortunate in finding for. the first time one 



NO. 1358, VOL. 53] 



of these pebbles which contains true crystrals of the mineral. 

 He has found them to possess well-developed faces, and has been 

 able to measure and describe them. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Oxford.— Mr. W. B. Prowse, of Pembroke College, has been 

 elected to the Burdett-Coutts Scholarship in Geology, and Mr. 

 R. M. Brydone, of New College, was awarded the scholarship 

 which was not given last year, tenable for one year only. The 

 Burdett-Coutts Scholarship is of the annual value of ;^II5, and 

 is tenable for two years. 



Cambridge. — On November 4 the two vacant fellowships at St. 

 John's College were filled up by the election of Mr. F. F. Blackman 

 and Mr. S. S. Hough, late scholars of the College. Mr. Black- 

 man is Demonstrator of Botany in the University, and took a 

 first class in both parts of the Natural Sciences Tripos. Mr. 

 Hough is Isaac Newton Student in Astronomy, and was Third 

 Wrangler and Smith's Prizeman. Both of the newly-elected 

 Fellows have communicated important memoirs to the Royal 

 Society. Mr. Blackman's researches on the respiration of plants 

 were referred to with high commendation by Mr. Thiselton- 

 Dyer in his presidential address to the Botanical Section of the 

 British Association. 



The choice of the electors to the Professorship of Botany, 

 vacant by the death of Prof. Babington, fell upon Dr. Marshall 

 Ward, F.R.S., late Fellow of Christ's College, Professor of 

 Botany at the Royal Engineering College, Cooper's Hill. Prof. 

 Marshall Ward graduated B.A. in 1879, taking a first class in 

 the Natural Sciences Tripos. 



The State Medicine Syndicate report that, in view of the in- 

 creasing importance of the study of bacteriology in relation to 

 public health, they have decided to extend the time given to the 

 subject in the Sanitary Science Examination, and to appoint a 

 fifth Examiner specially conversant with it. Thirty-one candi- 

 dates received the Diploma in Public Health in the last academic 

 year. 



The skeleton of a Chillingham bull has been presented to the 

 Museum of Zoology by the Earl of Tankerville. 



The Report of the Royal Commission on Secondary Educa- 

 tion has at last been published. The Commission was appointed 

 in March 1894, " to consider what are the best methods of estab- 

 lishing a well-organised system of Secondary Education in 

 England, taking into account existing deficiencies, and having 

 regard to such local sources of revenue from endowment or 

 otherwise as are available or may be made available for this 

 purpose, and to make recommendations accordingly." The 

 Report is divided into four parts, referring respectively to 

 (i) previous legislation on the subject; (2) the state of things 

 now actually existing ; (3) the evidence submitted to the Com- 

 missioners, with a discussion of the views and suggestions of 

 certain leading witnesses ; (4) recommendations calculated to 

 bring about that correlation of existing agencies and economical 

 application of existing funds, which are required for the proper 

 organisation of Secondary Education. Technical Education is 

 included in the term Secondary, and the suggestions in the 

 Report refer to both alike. 



Dr. Franz Konig, Professor of Surgery in Gottingen 

 University, has been elected successor to the late Prof, von 

 Bardeleben in the Chair of Surgery at Berlin. Dr. Joseph 

 Disse, of Halle, has been appointed Professor of Anatomy at 

 Marburg. Mr. Frank H. Constant goes to Minnesota Univer- 

 sity as Assistant- Professor of Structural Engineering, and Mr. 

 H. Wade Hibbard as Assistant- Professor of Machine Design. 

 Dr. Partheil, of Marburg, has been appointed Professor of 

 Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Bonn. 



A FREE library, comprising museum, art galleries, and four 

 branch libraries, has just been opened at Pittsburg. The erec- 

 tion of the institution has taken three years, and the cost — 

 ^200,00X3 — has been defrayed by Mr. Andrew Carnegie. 



Mr. Cecil Smith has gone to Athens to take up the 

 Directorship of the British School there. 



