Kinahan — On Irish Metal Mining. 293 



-discovered at Gale and Oullenagh Hills while working the iron- 

 ores. The " Gale Hill coal " is interesting, as one of the first 

 discovered ; but is also important because a little below it, is 

 the great horizon where the iron-ore was worked in the seven- 

 teenth century. For no apparent reason, except it may be to 

 introduce a new set of names for the coals, this coal has been 

 ignored in the second " Geological Survey Memoir," published in 

 1881 {Parts of sheets, 127, 128, 136, 137, &c, by Messrs. Hull and 

 Hardman) ; although the same coal, under a new name, is recog- 

 nized in other places. After Wandesford, in 1728, commenced 

 to mine in the Co. Kilkenny, the Grand Canal Company and 

 others put down a number of bore-holes in this county, thereby 

 proving the extension of the Kilkenny coals. These coals, how- 

 ever, are now nearly worked out (page 285). 



The iron mining, smelting, and working [List of Iron Masters, 

 page 259) were considerable, both before and after 1641, and only 

 ceased when the forests were exhausted. At Dysert, near Mary- 

 borough, the property of Lord Carew, are limonite veins, formerly 

 extensively worked ; there, as previously suggested (page 286), 

 may be the mines mentioned by Boate as situated in the King's 

 Co., and worked by Sergeant Pigott. 



Traces of copper and lead have been found in the Ordovicians 

 of Slieve Bloom, but the localities are not recorded. 



Roscommon. 



In the Curlew Mountains, at the north of the county, are 

 reddish and greenish Silurians, with their associated felspathic 

 Exotic rocks, the Silurians being margined by Lower Carboniferous 

 Sandstones and Shales. To the east, near the Shannon, in Slieve 

 Baun, are small exposures of Ordovicians, also margined by similar 

 rocks ; while the latter also form small tracts to the W.S.W. of 

 Roscommon, and the N.E. of Castlereagh. Most of the rest of 

 the area is occupied by Carboniferous Limestones, they having on 

 them at Lough Allen — Coal Measures— -a portion of the Connatjght 

 Coal-field. 



The coals and clay-iron-stone appear in the description of the 

 €o. Cavan (page 267). No other metallic ores are recorded. In 



