TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 521 



any Permian strata, as these are deposited immediately on the Carboniferous Lime- 

 stone ; and if this amount of denudation had taken place in pre-Permian times in 

 the north, there seems a possibility of the same haying been the case in central 

 Ireland. If so, it is possible that some traces of the later deposits may yet be 

 found on the central plain. Certainly, if we are still to regard the white chalk as a 

 deep-sea deposit, the cretaceous rocks of the north-east of Ireland must have at one 

 time extended farther south than they do at present, and somewhere or other there 

 must have been shore deposits of that period formed further south than the Upper 

 Greensand of Antrim. The careful investigations of Professor Judd have largely 

 extended our knowledge of the Secondary rocks of the western coast and islands 

 of Scotland, and he has been able to show that the Jurassic series of the Western 

 Highlands could not have had a thickness of less than three thousand feet. It is 

 therefore hard to believe that with such a development in so closely neighbouring 

 a district, the deposits of the same age in Ireland can have been restricted to their 

 present area. 



Professor Judd considers that the amount of denudation in the Scottish High- 

 lands since the Mesozoic and even the Miocene period has been enormous, and that 

 the great surface features of the Highlands were produced in Pliocene times. It 

 seems therefore possible, if not probable, that so long a period of exposure to sub- 

 aerial influence as that assigned to the central plain of Ireland by Professor Hull, 

 would have resulted in a more uneven land surface than that which we now find. 

 At all events, the history of this remarkable physical feature is one which is of 

 high interest, and can hardly as yet be considered as closed. 



With regard to the mountainous districts surrounding the central plain, we 

 shall, I believe, have the opportunity of visiting some parts of the Wicklow 

 Mountains, a district from which a portion, at all events, of the native gold of 

 Ireland was procured in ancient times, as indeed it continues to be. Of the 

 abundance of gold in this country in early times, a glance at the magnificent col- 

 lection of ancient ornaments preserved in the Museum of the Eoyal Irish Academy 

 will serve to give an idea. Even in times more recent than those in which the 

 bulk of these ornaments were made, gold was an important product of this country, 

 and I am tempted to quote a few lines from an early English poem, < The Libell 

 of Englishe Policye,' witten in the year 1436. In treating of the commodities of 

 Ireland, the author says that the country is 



" So large, so gode, and so commodious 

 That to declare is straunge and merveilous. 

 For of silver and gold there is the ore 

 Among the wilde Irish, though they be pore ; 

 For they ar rude and can theron no skille 

 So that, if we hadde ther pese and good wille, 

 To mine and fine and metal for to pure 

 In wilde Irishe mighte we find the cure ; 

 As in Londone saith a jewellere 

 Which broughte from thennes gold oor to us here, 

 Wherof was fined metal gode and clene, 

 That at the touch no better coude be sene." 



Sir William Wilde has observed that the south-western half of Ireland has 

 yielded a greater amount of gold antiquities than the north-eastern, and probably 

 this would hold good with regard to the production of the metal itself, though it 

 has been found in the counties of Antrim, Tyrone, and Deny, as well as in those of 

 Dublin, Wicklow, Wexford, and Kildare. 



The north-east of Ireland possesses, however, another geological feature peculiar 

 to itself in that great expanse of volcanic beds which formed the subject of Pro- 

 fessor Hull's address to this section at the Belfast meeting. My only object in 

 now mentioning them is again to call attention to their containing the only remains 

 of a Miocene flora which are to be found in this island. Analogous beds were 

 detected in the corresponding basalts in the Island of Mull by the Duke of 

 Argyll in 1851. With the exception of the Hempstead beds of the Isle of Wight, 



