INTRODUCTION. xXV 
mentioned there are many other streams and rivers draining 
the complicated mountain systems of the southern half of the 
county and the Dingle peninsula, but they are quite incon- 
siderable in length and volume. 
Further details of the different physical features will be 
given when describing the nine botanical districts into which 
the county has been divided. 
III. Grotogican SKETCH. 
Large as is the area of Kerry its geological structure presents 
few apparent complications. The Dingle peninsula, however, 
forms an exception to this general statement as will be shown 
later on in this short sketch of the principal geological features 
cf the county. 
Taking the south of the county first, practically the whole 
of this extensive area consists of high mountain ranges of Old 
Red Sandstone running more or less parallel with one another 
and separated by low-lying valleys. These ridges and hollows 
when formed by the crumpling of the earth’s crust were covered 
by the Carboniferous strata such as the limestone and coal- 
measure series. Long continued and severe denudation swept 
away these softer and more recent formations from the 
elevated ridges, leaving the harder Old Red Sandstone exposed 
as the present mountain ranges and projecting headlands. 
With the removal of the softer material from these elevated 
regions, the denudation became more concentrated on the 
valleys which were gradually hollowed out to what is now their 
present shape, leaving the Red Sandstone exposed where the 
denudation was complete, the Carboniferous rocks where it was 
incomplete, or a surface of Drift where, as is generally the case, 
the denuded surfaces now lie covered by the debris of the 
surrounding strata. 
The only rocks of igneous origin occurring in this portion of 
the county are a few small areas of Felsite which lie scattered 
along a narrow strip about ten miles east and west between 
the Devil’s Punch Bowl on Mangerton and the southern slopes 
of the Paps Mountain in the Clydagh valley, Glenflesk. A few 
more of these igneous outcrops occur about Valencia Harbour, 
one of them forming Beginish Island. 
In the south of the county may also be seen many indications 
of the severe glaciation to which Kerry in common with a large 
portion of Ireland was subjected. To this agency Kerry owes 
not only its many mountain lakes, some of them still showing 
