Fkbkuasy 1, 1900.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



41 



Conducted by Hasby F. Withebby, f.z.s., m.b.o.u. 



Snow Goose in Ireland. — At the meeting of the 

 British Ornithologists' Club, held on November 22, 

 1899, Dr. Bowdler Sharpc exhibited, on behalf of Mr. 

 R. J. Ussher, a Snow Goose (Chen nivalis), shot near 

 Belmullet, County Mayo. The specimen belonged to 

 the larger form. Although the snow goose has been 

 identified by competent observers we believe that it 

 has never yet been obtained in England or Scotland. 

 Several specimens have been shot before in Ireland, 

 but according to Mr. Howard Saunders they all be- 

 longed to the smaller form. Both forms of the Snow 

 Goose are inhabitants of North America. 



Grasshopper Warhlerin ilorai/shire. (Annals of Sco/fish Xa/ural 

 ffistory. January, 1900, p 48.) Mr. R. H. MacKessiich has Dbtaiued 

 ncst8 and eggs, which have been identified by Mr. Harvie-Brown, of 

 this species from near Elgin. This record seems to extend the 

 northern breedin;; range of this bird in Great Britain. 



Bee-eater in Shetland. (Annuls of Scottish Natural Ilislori/, 

 January, 1900, p. 48.) A Bee-eater, which had been seen flving 

 about at Symbister, was found dead by Jfr. Arthur Adieou June 5th, 

 1899. Tlie Bee-eater very rarely occurs in Scotlant'. 



Pratincole near Montrose. (Annals of Scottish Natural Histori/, 

 January, 190(5, p. 51.) Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown records that Mr. 

 Stormond shot a Pratincole at Kocksands, Montrose, on November 4th, 



1899. The Pratincole has only once before been noticed in Scotland, 

 viz., at rnst, Shetland, as far back as 1812. 



Jlontayu's Harrier in TTirkloic. (Irish Naturalist, January, 1903, 

 p. 21.) Mr. Edwird Williams records that an immature male of 

 this species was shot near Kylebeg, Blessington, Co. Wicklow, on 

 September 7th, 1899. 



Rose-coloured Pastor in Co. Mayo. (Irish Naturalist, January, 



1900, p. 22.) Mr. Robert Warren records that a female specimen of 

 this erratic wanderer was shot near Foxford, on Xovember 5th, 1899. 



THE BURIED ALPS. 



By Grenville A. J. Cole, m.r.i.a., f.g.s., Professor of 

 Geology in the Royal College of Science for Ireland. 



It is now well recognised that the granitic core of a 

 great mountain-chain is not in itself the cause of the 

 elevated highland. It h<ts not forced itself up, splitting 

 asunder the superincumbent strata, and hurling them 

 back on either hand; but it bears in its own structure 

 all the signs of stress and pressure, and has clearly been 

 elevated with the strata, along some line of wrinkling 

 in the crust. Here and there, remelting has gone on in 

 the core, as the old rocks moved upward from Precam- 

 brian resting places; at other places fresh molten 

 masses have intruded from some caldron far below. 

 Along the axis cf movement, the old crust has been 

 squeezed together like a sponge; the liquids have es- 

 caped from one hollow to another, and at last consoli- 

 dated as crystalline igneous rocks, destined to weather 



out in resisting peaks and pinnacles. The great arch, 

 as it rose, became the natural receptacle for most of 

 these flowing ma.sses ; hence, wlicn denudation worked 

 against the chain, these reconstituted types of the 

 fundamental rocks — ancient gneisses that had renewed 

 their youth, began to stand out pre-eminently as a great 

 central ridge. The stratified covering w;us swept from 

 them, and is now found only in the foot-hills, 

 where its very structure, consisting of folded layers, 

 still renders it an easy prey. Rain and frost work in 

 along the upturned bedding-planes; and the strained 

 masses arc always ready to sl-p aud settle dowu before 

 the earth tremors that still attack the chain. 



The central core, then, marks out the axial character 

 of the mountains; where, on the other hand, it has 

 not been pushed sufficiently towards the surface, tho 

 features of the foot-hills may prevail from side to side 

 of the wrinkled area. Thus it is that, as wo approach 

 the end of a chain, *he scenery is less austere and more 

 broken up into local landscapes — not so generalised as • 

 in the grander altitudes of the range. 



This becomes markedly felt in the eastern borders of 

 the Alps, where the hills ramify like huge fingers, gr;isp- 

 ing between them the inlets of the European plain. At 

 times we scarcely realise the presence of the massif, the 

 potential mountain-range, though all the time it lies 

 buried at no great depth beneath us. 



We leave Vienna by the Cainozoic ridge of Schoii- 

 brunn, and are practically entering, from a geographical 

 point of view, on the great Karpathiau ring, which 

 girds about tho whole of Hungary. On our right, the 

 green but broken highland, covered with its woods, re- 

 presents alike the limestone Alps of Innsbruck and the 

 forest-ranges of the Tatra which dominate, far in the 

 north-east, the hamlets of the Polish plain. Similarly, 

 the gneissic axis south of us, peeping out along the 

 Leitha Hills, forms the neck that unites the Hohe 

 Tauern of Salzburg with the mining district of 

 Hungary, and, farther still, with the wall-like frontier 

 of Roumania. 



There is little, however, to suggest the Alps or the 

 Karpathians in the gentle slopes above the Leitha. 

 The ground rises, that is all ; and the first dusty levels 

 of Hungary, where the great white cattle feed in un- 

 bounded fields, pass into a more tumbled country, 

 shaded here and there by trees. The villages occupy 

 the strategic positions on this miniature mountain side, 

 with an occasional ruined tower, holding a pass some 

 600 feet above tho sea. Then we descend into the 

 yellow dust again, with the grey waters of the Ferto 

 Lake (Neusiedler See), filling i^s basin on the left. Even 

 this lake emphasises the contrast with the Alps; it is 

 ten miles long and about four feet deep, saline itself, 

 and bordered by still Salter marshes. This is clearly 

 a feature of the plain, into which it often merges by 

 evaporation. 



Continuing southward, we actually touch the gneiss, 

 on a little rise beyond Soprou (Odenburg); and we 

 get under a real hill at Koszeg, the last spur of tho 

 north-eastern Alps. Then, for kilometre after kilometre, 

 we cross a low plateau, formad of crumbling Pliocene 

 and Miocene strata, among which arc the last marine 

 deposits laid down in Eastern Kuiope. Every now and 

 then, we descend into an alluvial area, cross some stream 

 running eastward to the Danube, note the villages clu.s- 

 tered thirstily along it, and push up again to the yellow 

 scarp of the plateau. 



But in time the alluvium becomes the prevailing 

 feature. At Baksa, the country is so level that a tall 



