Mr. Weaver on the Geological Relations of the South of Ireland. 49 



the horizontal, and is afterwards 8° or 10° to the north ; while further on in 

 Barry's glen, the southerly dip is resumed at angles between 40° and 20°. 

 But in the range of hills lying between that glen and Killarney the inter- 

 changeable dip is repeated, at high angles, vertical beds intervening. 



A similar structure is observable, in the same parallel, in the eastern portion 

 of the tract. Thus, immediately north and west of Kanturk, the beds undu- 

 late from north to south, their curvature seldom reaching to a high angle ; 

 but between the Brogeen stream (which joins the Allow river from the west, 

 near to Kanturk) and the Blackwater on the south, the coal rocks are 

 generally in a position approaching to the vertical, with dips interchangeable 

 north and south. 



The southern portion of our coal-field, is thus marked by a range of nearly 

 vertical beds, extending from the northern side of the Laune and Killarney on 

 the west, to the banks of the river Allow on the east. On the south, this range 

 immediately conjoins with the transition rocks, and it is remarkable that on 

 the greater part of this line, namely, by the course of the Blackwater, the two 

 series are found, the former on the left and the latter on the right bank 

 of that river, both dipping to the southward, and at angles nearly correspond- 

 ing, viz. between 75° and 45° south, which led me in the first instance, com- 

 bined with other considerations, to conceive the formations contemporaneous; 

 but this idea was dispelled on finding the coal measures in the western and 

 eastern portions of the tract directly incumbent on the carboniferous lime- 

 stone, and the latter in the west reposing, in part, on the old red sandstone. 



(62.) The rocks of the South Munster coal-field consist chiefly of varieties 

 of sandstone or gritstone, and slate or shale, alternating with each other. In 

 this series, I have not met with coarse conglomerates ; and the slaty micaceous 

 sandstone or flagstone, which is extensively developed in the coal formation of 

 the county of Clare (as well as in parts of that of Leinster), appears generally 

 deficient in the tract, south of the Shannon. 



In the line of contact with the subjacent limestone, brown, yellow, grey, and black i,hales are 

 the more common rocks. When firm and intermingled with quartzose and micaceous matter, 

 they partly resemble some kinds of greywacke slate. The line of cleavage in the shales commonly 

 forms a highly oblique angle with the plane of stratification ; and on exposure to meteoric influ- 

 ences, the stone generally shivers into long splinters or spicular fragments. In some of the beds 

 may also be observed a tendency to spheroidal concretions, composed of concentric lamellae, 

 formed of very fine-grained, micaceous gritstone cemented by ferruginous shale. Portions of the 

 black shales are in some places employed as black chalk. 



The gritstones are most commonly of brownish or greyish hues, seldomer greenish, and are more 

 or less argillaceous or siliceous, as slaty or quartzose matter prevails in the composition, being also 

 more or less micaceous. Some of the argillaceous gritstones, when containing small scaly frag- 



VOL. V. — SECOND SERIES. H 



