Trof. Dr. Ferdinand Boemer — A Visit to Ireland. 55 



Since the first appearance in 1865 of the Journal of the Royal 

 Geological Society of Ireland (new series), it has been issued 

 regularly, and contains many important geological articles on the 

 country. The Transactions of the Eoyal Irish Academy contain some 

 interesting papers on geology and palaeontology, as, for instance, 

 Professor T. H. Huxley's and Dr. Percival Wright's description of 

 remarkable reptiles in the Coal-measui-es of the Co. Kilkenny (" On 

 a Collection of Fossil Vertebrata from the Jarrow Colliery, County 

 Kilkenny, Ireland," vol. xxiv. 1867). 



Several public collections in Dublin are important in a geological 

 sense. We may mention in the first place the Museum of the 

 Royal College of Science. Here are to be found in a large gallery 

 on the upper floor the collections of the Geological Survey. They 

 comprise beautiful series of Irish rock-specimens, and of the 

 fossils of the several sedimentary formations. Among the latter 

 especially are splendid examples of the Palceopteris Hibernica, 

 Schirap. (Adiantites Hibernicus, R. Griff, and Ad. Brongn.), from 

 the upper division of the Old Red Sandstone, or Devonian beds, 

 particularly that which contains the Yellow Sandstone of Kiltorkan 

 Hill, in the Co. Kilkenny, as well as from the other formations con- 

 taining remains of vegetable and animal life. Moreover, there are 

 rich collections of fossils from the Carboniferous Limestone, which, of 

 all the sedimentary formations in Ireland, occupies the largest space. 

 From the upper or productive Coal-measures are some of the 

 originals of the remarkable reptiles already referred to as described 

 by Professor Huxley and Dr. Percival Wright. A complete skeleton 

 of the Cervus megaceros is a conspicuous ornament to the hall. The 

 Museum of the Royal Dublin Society, which is under the excellent 

 management of Dr. A. Carte, contains also much that is really 

 remarkable. The principal ornament of this collection consists in 

 the complete and original specimen of the Plesiosaurus Cramptoni, 

 the largest of the species yet discovered, which was found in the 

 Lias of Whitby. The specimen of Didiis ineptus, complete all but the 

 skull, which has been artificially supplied, is likewise exceedingly 

 interesting. Numerous remains of this extinct bird were found a few 

 years ago in draining a swamp in the island of Mauritius ; an event 

 which makes the conjecture probable that, in the course of time, several 

 more specimens of this singular bird may be brought to Europe. 

 There are besides in this Museum complete skeletons of the Cervus 

 megaceros, male and female. On beholding these, one cannot avoid 

 wishing that a few living examples of this majestic animal, which 

 must have thrown into the shade all other species of the beautiful 

 deer tribe, had continued to exist in our present world. 

 Several heads with the antlers, and numerous bones, of the same 

 magnificent animal, are likewise exhibited. Some of the latter 

 present the singular appearance of being marked with deep cuts or 

 indentations, which, on account of their sharpness and smoothness, 

 one would naturally suppose to be the effect of a sharp tool worked 

 by human agency, if the well-observed circumstances under which 

 these marked bones and organic remains were discovered did not 



