Prof. E. Butt— Reply to Mr. Kinahan. 129 



Tralee, etc., a fact which Mr. Kinahan, with all his experience, 

 has failed to discover for himself. 



For my part, I cannot be guilty of the absurdity of supposing that 

 beds separated by a gap (represented by 12,000 feet of strata) on 

 one side of a small bay, that of Dingle, can be in a position of con- 

 tinuous sequence on the other side ; yet this view appears to be held 

 by Mr. Kinahan (" Geology of Ireland," p. 52, etc.). 



As regards the beds of the Curlew Mountains, which are shown 

 on the maps of the Geological Survey as Old Red Sandstone, Mr. 

 Kinahan considers them to be " stratigraphically similar " to those 

 of the Glengarriff Grit Series. This is a view peculiar to Mr. Kinahan 

 himself, who can have but little personal knowledge of these beds, 

 and different from that entertained by the officers of the Survey who 

 surveyed the ground. Professor Jukes calls these beds " Old Eed 

 Sandstone" in his paper "On the Felstones of the Curlew Hills" 

 (Journ. Geol. Soc. Ireland, vol. i.); they were so denominated by the 

 late Mr. Foot, and by Mr. Cruise, who surveyed the ground ; as also 

 by Sir E. Griffith in his Geological Map of Ireland (1855), who 

 places these beds (Fc) on quite a different geological horizon from 

 the Dingle Beds and Glengarriff Grits (which are marked Ee). I 

 am not surprised at this unanimity of opinion, in which I entirely 

 concur, as the beds of the Curlew Hills, consisting of dark red and 

 purple sandstones and conglomerates, bear little resemblance to the 

 hard green grits and purple slates of the Glengarriff Series. 



Mr. Kinahan proposes to abolish the Old Eed Sandstone from the 

 Geological Map of the South of Ireland — entirely ignoring the fossil 

 evidence, which is of a very striking kind. There is, first, the pre- 

 sence of the fresh- water bivalve Anodonta Jukesii; then the remains 

 of Old Eed fishes, such as Coccosteus, Pterichthys, etc. ; and plants 

 like the noble Adiantites (Paleeopteris) Hibemicus, not found in the 

 overlying Carboniferous beds. Now, while these beds, lying at the 

 top of the true Old Eed of the South of Ireland, thus indicate 

 freshwater conditions, those of the succeeding Carboniferous Slate 

 show only marine conditions, as indicated by numerous species of 

 Mollusca. 



As Mr. Kinahan has done me the honour to point out my 

 " errors " in reference to Irish rocks, he cannot, therefore, object 

 to a similar piece of service on my part. I might enumerate many, 

 but will content myself with two instances. 



In his paper already referred to (Geol. Mag. Feb. p. 69) he says : 

 "In the Ballycastle Coal-field, to the north-east of Antrim, Old 

 Eed Sandstone occurs interstratified in the Coal-bearing Calp." 

 Now, "Calp" is the term used in Ireland to denote the middle earthy 

 beds of the Carboniferous Limestone. Thus, while Mr. Kinahan 

 would obliterate the Old Eed Sandstone lying at the base of the 

 Carboniferous beds, with its fresh-water shells, its peculiar fish, and 

 remarkable flora, from the South of Ireland, he would introduce it 

 amongst the Coal-bearing beds of county Antrim. This is, to say 

 the least, a novel position for the Old Eed Sandstone. 



The beds referred to are red sandstones with a conglomerate base 



DECADE II. VOL. VI. — NO. III. 9 



