EXPLANATIONS OF TABLES AND LIST OF LOCALITIES. 257 



H. Miller ; as well as to Sir R. Murchison, and Mr. Salter, who have kindly allowed 

 me access to the lists and specimens assembled during the survey of part of Scotland. 



IRELAND. 



In Ireland thirty counties have afforded about seventy-nine species, and is, next to 

 England, the portion of Great Britain which has hitherto produced the largest number of 

 species. It is possible that a few of these seventy-nine will turn out, when better known, 

 to be synonyms, and that a few others may occur ; but all my researches and efforts, as 

 well as those of several friends in Ireland, have not hitherto succeeded in detecting a 

 larger number, and I have already given my reasons why so many of those recorded in 

 the ' Synopsis ' must be rejected. 



The portion of my table devoted to Irish species is founded on a personal examina- 

 tion of the specimens collected during many years by Mr. Kelly and others for Sir R. 

 Griffith, and from which Prof. M'Coy's ' Synopsis of the Characters of the Carboniferous 

 Fossils of Ireland' (1844) originated. I have also seen General Portlock's specimens, 

 now forming part of the Museum of Practical Geology in London, and have examined 

 many other specimens from various Irish private collections, as well as from the Geolo- 

 gical Survey of Ireland, in addition to a small series in my own possession. It is, how- 

 ever, to Mr. Kelly, and to Mr. Joseph Wright, of Cork, that the distribution of the 

 species in the larger number of the Irish counties is mainly due, as it is to them that I 

 am indebted for most of the information and specimens I possess. As it is the case with 

 England, some of the Irish counties have been more carefully searched than others ; thus, 

 for example, those of Dublin, Kildare, and Cork, have hitherto afforded the largest number 

 of species. I have also availed myself of much information contained in Mr. Kelly's 

 valuable paper ' On Localities of Fossils of the Carboniferous Limestone of Ireland,' 

 1855, and in the explanations of the Geological Survey of Ireland, No. 102, 122, 197, 

 198, and 153. Mr. Kelly divides the Carboniferous system of Ireland into — 1, Old 

 Red Sandstone ; 2, Calciferous Slate ; 3, Limestone ; 4, Coal. I have, however, else- 

 where objected to the term Old Red Sandstone being made use of for a division of the 

 Carboniferous system, as it is evident that the term Old Red Sandstone cannot be 

 retained or made use of to designate at the same time a Silurian, Devonian, and Car- 

 boniferous rock ; the term Old Bed Sandstone being now retained for a Devonian rock 

 older than the Irish Red and Yellow Sandstone, which constitute the first or lowest 

 division of the system. These Irish Sandstones, at Kildress and elsewhere, are full of 

 Carboniferous, and not Devonian fossils ; the same species, occurring in the Calcife- 

 rous Slates, Carboniferous Limestone, and Shales. I have, therefore, suggested 

 that geologists should drop the term " old " in their subdivisions of the Carboniferous 

 group, and distinguish their lowest or first division by the designation of — 1, Loiver 



