Devon and Cornwall, Belgium, the Eifel, Sj-c. 291 



vicinage of Castle island. The former is represented as con- 

 stituting merely a cap or sheet formed upon an inclined plane 

 from west to east, the strata corresponding, and succeeding 

 each other in that direction to the junction with the carboni- 

 ferous limestone. I know of no such arrangement. On the 

 contrary, the strata of the old red sandstone are accumulated 

 to a great depth, and certainly in some quarters at least to the 

 level of the sea, if not deeper, being disposed in a gently 

 arched form from north to south, as may be well observed in 

 the defiles and glens which penetrate fron the north into the 

 interior of that mountain range*. In this series I have not 

 observed a general dip to the east, the strata even in the most 

 eastern quarter (including beds of red clay and red slaty clay) 

 still preserving the flat arched arrangement from north to 

 south ; and it is only at the eastern foot of Slieve Meesh that 

 other beds appear dipping to the east of south, and which 

 from their dissimilarity altogether to the old red sandstone 

 formation of the Slieve Meesh range, I could only view as a 

 protruding portion of the subjacent transition rocks continued 

 from the west. I know of no organic remains to invalidate 

 this conclusion. The Spiriferce, Productce, Terehratidce, and 

 Crinoidea that I met with were too indistinct to admit of de- 

 termining the species, but I am mistaken if there be not an 

 Orthis among the number ; while the Favosites which I no- 

 ticed I apprehend to be F.Jibrosa. This eastern foot of the 

 Slieve Meesh is represented by Mr. Griffith as composed of 

 a succession of beds of yellow and grey quartzy sandstone, 

 dark grey clayslate, sandstone, dark grey clayslate, grey 

 quartzy sandstone, alternating limestone and greenish clay- 

 slate, against which the carboniferous limestone is exhibited 

 as abutting in unconformable position ■\. The sandstone is 

 stated to contain calamites, and the general series to abound 

 with the casts of fossils, whose distinctive characters, it is ad- 

 mitted, it is difficult to recognise, but among them are Pro- 

 ductae, Spiriferae, Terelyratulce, Crinoidea, and corals ; and the 

 upper beds of the greenish grey clayslate are said to be identi- 

 cal with those which occur alternating with limestone in the 

 peninsula of Muckruss. I confess I have not traced any such 

 uninterrupted succession as is here described, the country in 

 general being well covered up; but if we suppose it to be 

 correct, there is no direct proof that such succession belongs 

 to the carboniferous series. From the quarry which 1 have 



* Memoir on the South of Ireland, §§ 10, 13, 49, in Geol. Trans., vol. v., 

 second series. 



t Journal of Geol. Soc. of Dublin, vol. ii. pp. 82, 83, and the lower section 

 in plate iv. 



U 2 



