732 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy^. 



The last mountains considered. (Maumtrasna) are partly in Mayo, 

 partly in Galway, and they are apparently no great acquisition to 

 either county, viewed botanically or in any other way. 



Travelling southwards, we shall now take the Galway mountains 

 in order, and there will be found on the whole a steady increase in 

 the number of alpine plants. "West of Leenane, on the Killary, 

 the land rises at once to form another chain of mountains which 

 stretches southwards to Maumturkmore. From this a ridge of dome- 

 shaped quartzite mountains sweep round south-east and east to Mau- 

 meen, where there is a deeper valley than elsewhere, and then, bending 

 more and more eastwards, it ends with the isolated lumps Corcogemore 

 and Leckavrea (Shanafolia), above Lough Shindillia, at the Halfway- 

 house from Clifden to Oughterard. The axis of this range would be 

 probably about twenty miles ; but after walking the whole length, 

 summit after summit, from the Halfway-house to Leenane hotel, I 

 concluded it to be nearer double that distance on foot. A zig-zag 

 series of beehives best gives an idea of this remarkably bold and con- 

 spicuous range ; each beehive being connected with its successor and 

 predecessor by ridges, frequently several hundred, or even a thousand 

 feet down, and usually altogether out of the lines of summits, and not 

 even visible from them, so that compass bearings often lead one far 

 astray. Add to this that the footing is mostly a loose detritus of 

 heavy angular blocks of quartzite, bare of all sod or vegetation for 

 miles, and it will readily be conceived that this is anything but a 

 gentle day's stroll. These plateaux and truncated mounds seem more 

 the shattered remnants of a mountain range that nature is endeavour- 

 ing to efface, rather than soften with any of her charms. "Wherever 

 there appeared a chance I made detours and searched for varieties, and 

 at the southern end of the chain, especially about Maumeen, which I 

 examined carefully, I succeeded in finding a few, some of which had 

 previously been observed; but, having passed that oasis, my object 

 became more and more steadfastly fixed to hurry out of these inter- 

 minable wastes before nightfall, and to visit them no more. The 

 Maumturk range is the tangled cluster of the Twelve Bens, stretched 

 out in a curved line with their tops rubbed off. The heights are about 

 the same, commonly 2000 feet to 2400 feet, and all are chiefly quartzite. 

 The chain has, however, lost most of its peaks, the compact mass of the 

 Bens having been better able to resist the wearing action of the glacial 

 period — during which time the ice-sheet appears to have buried the 

 highest points of these mountains — and the denudation of subsequent 

 times. The alpine species observed were : — Thalictrum alpinum, Saxi- 

 fraga oppositifoUa, S. stellaris, Sedum rhodiola, Hieracium anglicum, and 

 its variety, IT. iricum ; Juniperus nana, Salix herhacea, Isoetes lacustris, 

 Lyeopodium selaginella, L. alpinum. Some other scarce species were ob- 

 served, as : Aralis hirsuta, Sagina subidata, Crepis paludosa, Hieracium 

 vulgatum (var. gothicum), Listera cordata, Cystopteris fragilis, and 

 Carex filiformis ; the latter only at the base of Leckavrea. Saxifraga 

 tiinhrosa is, as usual, abundant ; JDaheocia polifoUa is an ornament upon 



