August 1, 1898.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



171 



and, when we are chatting at tea-time in the farms, 

 or exchanging a greeting with some qld peasant on the 

 W!iy, it is hard to recall or to realise the bitter stories 

 of the glens. When, however, we turn off the mail- 

 car routes, we perceive, even now, the isolation of 

 this old-world highland. The vivid colouring of the 

 costumes of the peasantry in itself shows lack of inter- 

 course ; English is but little spoken ; and the women 

 work out of doors, not only with the men, but for 

 the men, as in the primitive countries of this world. But 

 such scenes, and the strangeness of them, have high 

 attractions for those who view them from without. Here, 

 on a corner of the pass, comes a woman, her basket on 

 her arm, riding over to one of the villages on Lough Mask. 

 With her white cap, her deep red skirt, her shawl of 



to the old " Caledonian ' chains ; that is to say, they 

 were upheaved and folded at the close of Silurian times. 

 Here and there, we have proofs that they sank in part 

 beneath the Carboniferous sea, and were again upraised 

 during the great " Hercynian " movements. One or two 

 patches of Carboniferous sandstone and conglomerate 

 remain as outliers on the heights around Maamtrasna, 

 that on Ben Wee now lying at an elevation of more than 

 two thousand feet.* The mountains that were lost for a 

 ■time beneath the waves have reasserted themselves, and 

 have thrown off the covering of Carboniferous deposits ; 

 and we find exposed at their bases the still older surface 

 on which their own materials were laid dowu.f 



The prominent stratified rocks on either side of the fjord 

 of Killary Harbour are the Ordovician conglomerates. 



Fig. 1.— Tien- up the head of theljori . K;', II . . .; r. contmuitv with tlie >i i ; ' . I ■ n Ki',. ■. 



The tide is running out. The terraced scarp ot the Formnauiorc group hounds the vallev ou -tlie right. (From a photograph 

 by Mr. E. Welch.) 



brilliant hues, in which scarlet and crimson predominate, 

 she forms a vision of colour against the moorland, such 

 as one scarcely looks for short of the Hungarian east. 

 Down below, a sober distance in advance, we see her 

 master, also riding, and gathering the week's news by 

 calling to his friends, it may be a field or two away. Behind 

 us, a grey rain-drift creeps up across the Joyces' country ; 

 on the left, the huge wall of Maamtrasna rises so sheer 

 that it seems in the gloom to overhang ; while, in front 

 and below, the great lake stretches, white, like a sea, into 

 the plain. 



Behind these obvious features lies a long geological 

 history ; and it is the history of the whole north-west of 

 Ireland. The rocks that are now laid bare belong mainly 



These can be studied in almost every fallen block along 

 the shore for miles west of Leenane ; on the gentler slopes 

 of Ben Gorm across the water ; and, to name no other 

 region, in massive exposures, worn by glaciation, on the 

 steep descent to Lough Nafooey. Few recks are more 

 handsome in themselves ; few tell better the tale of long 

 waste and denudation, as the oldest Irish land gave way 

 before the breakers of an Ordovician sea. The great 



* ITemoir to Sheets 73. 74, 83, and Si. Oeological Survei/ of 

 Ireland (1876), p. 53. The later annual reports of the Survey 

 include a considerable revision of the Killary district. See that for 

 1S96. pp. 49 to 51 (published in 1897). 



t These older rocks are part of the conveniently named Dalrudiaii 

 group of Sir A. G-eikie. 



