INTRODUCTION. xxvii 
coal measures, extend from the north shore of the Muckross 
Lake, Killarney, right across to Tarbert at the north-eastern 
extremity of the county. 
Large areas of Blown Sand occur at several places on the 
Kerry coast. The principal accumulations are those at the 
head of Dingle Bay, where the Inch or Maghaglass sandhills 
on the north shore rise to 90 feet, a height also attained by 
the Castlegregory sandhills dividing Brandon from Tralee 
Bay, while the extensive Banna dunes north-west of Ardfert 
rise to 88 feet. 
From the foregoing Topographical and Geological sketches 
it will be seen that Kerry is well adapted to maintain an 
abundant and varied flora. Limestone rocks and drifts, 
widely if irregularly distributed, afford a congenial soil for 
calcicole species, while the many fine ranges of elevated cliff 
in spite of the neutralising effect of southerly latitude com- 
bined with proximity to the ocean, give harbourage to an 
alpine flora of great interest. Numerous lakes, swamps and 
bogs, and a very varied coast line supply many suitable 
localities for aquatic and moisture loving plants as well as for 
coastal species. 
IV. Ciimate. 
The climate of Kerry may be briefly summarised as moist, 
mild, and changeable. Owing both to its configuration and 
geographical position Kerry offers peculiar scope for pluvial 
conditions. It stands full in the way of the prevailing 
moisture-laden winds from the Atlantic, which, after sweeping 
across vast regions of heated ocean, here meet with their first 
land in the form of the most elevated ranges in Ireland. These, 
especially in their cool upper regions, form only too often an 
effective cause of precipitation. 
It follows from these considerations that, unless some 
exceptional circumstance supervenes, the more elevated the 
region the larger will be the precipitation, and there can be 
but little doubt that there are localities in the south and west 
of Kerry which receive the largest rainfallsin Ireland. Reliable 
records of mountain rainfalls, however, are very rare in Ireland, 
only three such stations with an elevation exceeding 1,350 feet 
appearing in Symons’s British Rainfall. Fortunately one of 
these three stations is situated in Kerry at 1,760 feet on 
Mangerton. Here observations were continued for many years, 
and as there is another carefully kept contemporaneous record 
at Woodlawn near Killarney, an opportunity is afforded of 
