S'32 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Mai*. 7, 



occurrence. Farther west we again get Carboniferous beds in the 

 hollows of two of the synclinals, making first the Trough of Kenmare 

 with ordinary Carboniferous Limestone for about 10 miles, and 

 Carboniferous Slate only for about 12 or 15 more. This is nearly 

 in the strike of the Tallow trough. Secondly comes the Bantry 

 Trough, which contains Carboniferous Slate only, and is about 40 

 miles long, being extended 4 or 5 miles farther to the east than it 

 otherwise would be, in consequence of the ground rising in Shehy 

 Mountain to a greater height than it usually does when it is formed 

 .of Carboniferous rocks. This is in the strike of the Corh and 

 Midleton trough. 



The two Carboniferous troughs of Kenmare and Bantry have been 

 .eroded on the west into two beautiful bays, separated from each 

 other by a lofty Old Red Sandstone ridge, of which the highest point 

 .(Hungry Hill) is 2250 feet above the sea. 



Kenmare Bay is separated from Dingle Bay by another broader 

 and loftier promontory — that of Iveragh and Dunkerron, in which 

 Carrantuohill (3414 feet) and Macgillicuddy's Eeeks lie. 



The rocks are well shown in both these promontories in nume- 

 rous glens and ravines as well as upon bare hill- sides, and while 

 they often undulate in sharp and frequent curves, especially near 

 ihe centres of the districts, there are also numerous places where a 

 steady dip of 60° either to the north or south may be observed for two 

 •or three miles ; and this in places where the majority of the rocks 

 are hard massive sandstones with thin interstratified slates, so that 

 no mistake can be made of cleavage, or oblique lamination, for true 

 bedding. Notwithstanding the great depths to which we can thus 

 .penetrate into those beds, there is no appearance of any change in 

 "the nature or " lie " of the rocks which would enable us to draw 

 a lower boundary to them, or allow us to suppose that we have 

 .reached another lower formation. 



The rocks consist of red, purple, brown, and greenish sandstones, 

 sometimes becoming purplish-grey, but never black or dark-grey, 

 and they are variously interstratified with bright-red, purple, lilac, 

 greenish, and yellowish clay-slates. The slates occasionally pre- 

 dominate to such an extent as to cause the mass to assume the 

 character of a great clay -slate formation, the transverse cleavage 

 cutting across the beds generally at a high angle and with a steady 

 strike of west-south-west and east-north-east, but dipping sometimes 

 to one side and sometimes to the other side of their strike. Thin 

 bands of slate between thick grits are often perfectly cleaved, the 

 cleavage affecting the grits to such an extent as to make them break 

 into sharp dog-toothed indentations at top and bottom, and some- 

 times to split readily into thin flags at right angles to the bedding. 



Although the districts formed of this Old Red Sandstone have 

 been twice diligently searched by our fossil- collectors (James Fla- 

 nagan and Charles Galvan) as weU as by the gentlemen who laid 

 down the rocks upon our maps, and have been examined by many 

 other independent observers, no trace of a fossil has, as yet, rewarded 

 the search in either of these two promontories, except some frag- 



