Kinahan — On Irish Metal Mining. 295 



TlPPERARY. 



The Killenaule, or East Munster Coal-eield, lies to the east 

 of this county, it being joined to the Kilkenny field by a tract of 

 Lower Coal Measures — while outlying small patches of the latter 

 are found N. E. and S. W. of Fethard, N. W. of Olonmel, at the 

 5>ock of Cashel, and in Slievenamuck, S.W. of Tipperary. To 

 the S. E. of the area in Slievenaman are Ordovicians, flanked by 

 Lower Carboniferous Sandstone; to the S. W., in Knockmealdon, 

 are rocks that possibly may be the eastern extension of the Go. 

 Cork, Devonian and Silurians; to the west, in the Galtees and Slieve- 

 namuck, are small exposures of Ordovicians, margined by Lower Car- 

 boniferous Sandstone; and to the N. W., in the Arra Mountains, 

 and Slieve Phelim, are similar groups of rocks, similarly related ; 

 while most of the low country is occupied by the Carboniferous 

 Limestones. 



Between 1730 and 1740, coal wass searched for and found by 

 the Langleys in the Coalbrook Colliery, but some forty or fifty 

 years seem to have elapsed before it was worked by the Groings in 

 Earl's Hill ; and elsewhere by the Mining Company of Ireland — • 

 the collieries not being well developed till after 1825. 



The profitable coals were — Surface, Parkenaclea, Clashacona, 

 Main, and Olengoola. All the beds above the Main coal were solely 

 found in Earl's Hill, where the measures are thickest, while the 

 Main coal, besides here, was only found in some detached basins. 

 All the profitable portions of these coals, except the Grlengoola 

 beds, and small tracts of limited extent of others, seem now to be 

 worked out. 



Associated with the Grleragoola coal in Coalbrook and elsewhere 

 are some seams of rich clay-iron-stone, but I can find no records 

 of these having been mined or smelted. Other iron ore, however, 

 was raised in the older rocks, and smelted at Gortnahalla, in the 

 valley of the Clodiagh, to the S. W. of Borrisoleagh. Some ore is 

 also said to have been raised and smelted near Roscrea: these 

 latter works may, however, have been in the King's County. 



At Grleninchinaveigh, near Upper Cross, there is a vein coeh 

 taining anthracite and graphite, four feet wide at surface. This, 

 in 1857, was sunk on for a depth of ten fathoms, but the walls 



