322 PKOCEEDiNGS OP THE GEOLoaicAL SOCIETY. [Mar. 7, 



(after the death of Professor Ed. Forbes) spent part of one summer 

 in examining our fossils and visiting with me the principal fossil 

 localities. The fossils were collected by the late James Flanagan in 

 the first instance, and additions have been made by our present 

 collectors Charles Galvan and Alexander IVI'^Henry ; and some of the 

 localities have been visited by Mr. W. H. Baily, who since the year 

 1857 has acted as Palaeontologist to the Irish branch of the Survey. 

 When I speak of the labours of the Survey, then, it is to those of the 

 gentlemen named I more particularly refer; my own share being 

 limited to general inspection of the work and comparison of the 

 structure of different parts of the district, together with laying down 

 the rocks of two or three small areas which happened to be typical 

 localities. 



I must not omit to mention that in our examination of this dis- 

 trict we had of course been preceded by Sir R. I. Griffith, and that 

 our more exhaustive operations only confirmed the general conclu- 

 sions which he had previously arrived at, as shown in the later 

 editions of 'his map. His name " Carboniferous Slate " is perfectly 

 applicable to the grey slates and grits of the south-west of Cork, and 

 has accordingly been adopted by us ; and his boundaries agree gene- 

 rally with ours, except in one area where he takes a diff'erent base for 

 the Old Red Sandstone, and so far as the imperfect map on which 

 his results are published can be compared with the new ordnance 

 one-inch sheets. 



I will now give a sketch of the Old Red Sandstone and Carboni- 

 ferous formations of the south of Ireland, commencing with the 

 County Wexford and following them to the western bays and head- 

 lands of County Cork*. 



II. Sketch oe the IJppek Palaeozoic Rocks oe the Sotjtheen 



POETION- OF IeELAT^D. 



1. Wexford. — The Porth Mountain district, in the county of 

 Wexford, shows green and purple slates and grits, with large bands 

 of quartz-rock, which are believed to be part of the Cambrian for- 

 mation. The town of Wexford is built on these rocks. About a 

 mile to the north of it, however, there are several quarries in a red 

 sandstone and conglomerate just hke some of the Old Red Sand- 

 stone of South Wales, dipping gently to the east and south-east, in 

 which direction a few exposures of Carboniferous Limestone were 

 obscurely seen. About a mile to the south of Wexford there are ^ 

 several considerable quarries in dark-grey, compact or crystalline 

 limestone, with beds of black shale, from which a number of common 

 Carboniferous fossils were collected. In the townland of Kerloge, 

 near the old church, and not far from St. James's Well, the lowest 

 beds visible of this limestone are full of pebbles of quartz-rock, a 

 crag of which, in situ (a part of the Cambrian formation), rises on 



* Although much of the matter of this sketch may have been published before 

 in separate forms, I am not aware of any previously published connected sketch 

 of the gradual but great change which takes place in these rocks as they are 

 traced across the south of Ireland, 



