Reviews— Dublin Quarterly Journal. 73 



I, — The Dublin Quarterly Journal of Science, containing 

 Papers read before the Eoyal Dublin Society, the Eoyal Irish 

 Academy, the Eoyal Geological Society of Ireland, and the 

 Natui-al History Society of Dublin. Edited by the Eev. S. 

 Haughton, M.D., F.E.S., etc. Nos. 19 and 20, July and October 

 1865. 



ME. W. HAETE'S "Notes on the Physical Features of the 

 County of Donegal" contain very much that is of interest, 

 both to glacialists and to general geologists. The probable condi- 

 tion of the ice-covered region of Donegal in the Glacial Period, the 

 direction of the ice-worn valleys, regulated by the geological 

 structure of the country, and the characters and sources of the local 

 drifts, are carefully noted. Land-ice has left its marks, as groovings 

 and moraines. At 1275 feet above the sea-level, granite blocks from 

 Blue Stack occur, which appear to have been left by floating ice 

 when the country was about 1300 feet lower than it is now ; the 

 rising of the land to that level having taken place at the close of the 

 Glacial Period. Mr. Harte believes that both a greater height of 

 land and a lower snow-line than exist at present, must have 

 concurred in the earlier part of that period. He also well describes 

 the circumstances that prove one large patch of submerged forest to 

 have originally grown behind a high coast-line of mica-schist, subse- 

 quently breached by the sea, and to have been afterwards covered by 

 shingle and sand-dunes, and to have been since exposed by the removal 

 of these by the waves ; and all this has taken place without any 

 sensible alteration in the elevation of the land. Mr. Harte calls 

 special attention to this ; for he thinks that oscillations of the land 

 are too freely called in to account for the position of submerged 

 forests, which often have grown on flats, behind natural sea-walls, at 

 the mouths of valleys, and on flat coasts. 



Mr. M. H. Ormsby describes a polished and striated surface on 

 the Limestone of Boss Hill, Co. Galway. The polish and principal 

 strige, he thinks, to have been due to a glacier coming from high 

 ground on the east ; and the cross, N.E. and S.W. stri^ to have 

 been subsequently caused by " the action of the Drift." 



The " Doctrine of Characteristic Fossils " seems to be as much a 

 trouble to Mr. J. Kelly as it is to many other thinking Geologists, 

 who are even less old-fashioned in some of their notions than he is. 

 As a step towards clearing up the difficulty, Mr. Kelly shows its 

 magnitude by a long table of 269 so-called " Devonian " fossils, of 

 which 35 stand also as Silurian, and 164: as Carboniferous, if Mr. 

 Kelly has adopted correct palfeontological determinations. But 

 surely the Corals and the Brachiopods, at least, have been revised 

 of late years. The "Devonian " is certainly a fine field for doubt, 

 — ^it has long been debateable ground between the Silurian and 

 Carboniferous ; and he will do most good who works out the limits 

 and relationship of the different beds, and catalogues their fossils 



