38 Reviews — Kinahan's Geology of Ireland. 



geology. Hence the work of summarizing the labours of all becomes 

 a desideratum, and it is somewhat surprising that until the past 

 year no epitome of the Geology of Ireland had appeared. 



Two works have however now been given to us ; but while both 

 aim at illustrating the geology of the sister isle, in no sense can they 

 be considered as rivals — the one supplements the other. 



Professor Hull's work, to which attention was lately directed, 

 gives in outline the chief features in the Geology of Ireland, and 

 dwells more especially upon the physical history of the rocks, and 

 the sculpturing of the scenery. Mr. Kinahan's work, now before 

 us, aims to give a more detailed account of the strata, and of the 

 facts to be observed in the field, thus acting as a guide to the geolo- 

 gist in his explorations. 



As the general features of the Geology of Ireland were pointed 

 out at some length in the notice of Prof. Hull's book (see Geol. 

 Mag. March and April, 1878), and as Dr. Evans again alluded to 

 them in his Address to the Geological Section of the British Asso- 

 ciation at the Dublin Meeting (see Geol. Mag. Sept. 1878), it will 

 be unnecessary to go over the same ground again. 



After a brief and concise introduction, Mr. Kinahan proceeds at 

 once to the description of the stratified rocks, which take up the 

 first section of the book. 



The oldest Palaeozoic rocks are grouped as Cambrian (Sedgwick), 

 Cambro-Silurian (Phillips), and Silurian (Jukes). In the case of 

 the term Silurian, although, as we think rightly, the author does not 

 include all the beds embraced under that denomination by Murchi- 

 son, yet we think the name of the author of the Silurian system 

 should certainly have been bracketed to it. 



The separate subdivisions are described under local geographical 

 names, and their probable English equivalents are given in a table. 



Much interest attaches to the Dingle beds or Glengariff grits, 

 which overlie true Silurian (Ludlow) rocks, with apparent con- 

 formity, in the Dingle promontory. 



In this promontory the beds are described as consisting " of green 

 and purple grits and slates which pass up into beds of coarse thick 

 sandstones and grits of greenish and reddish tints, like those in 

 the neighbourhood of Glengariff, County Cork, and interstratified 

 similarly with purple slates." No fossils proper to the group have 

 been found in them. But in the Iveragh and Dunkerron pro- 

 montory " there is a conformable sequence extending upwards into 

 the Carboniferous slate and limestone." In the Glengariff grits, 

 south and south-east of Dingle Bay, obscure tracks and plant-like 

 markings have been met with in the beds. 



Professor Hull remarks that the Dingle Beds " are overlaid in a 

 highly discordant manner by the red sandstones and conglomerates 

 of the Old Bed Sandstone formation." Nevertheless, as he adds, 

 " they have been placed by the Government Surveyors in a kind of 

 neutral territory, and are provisionally unattached to either of the 

 formations with which they are in contact." 



Mr. Kinahan places the Dingle Beds, as does Professor Hull, rather 



