50 NATURAL UISTORY SOCIETY OE DUBLIN. 



belonging to the Lycopodiaceae — Sigillaria, Stigmaria, &c, many of 

 them being identical species with fossil Plants found in the coal mea- 

 sures of the Forth of England. At some of the collieries, such as Ge- 

 neva, Jarrow, and Wolfs Hill, marine shells were found in the shales 

 over the coal, Aviculopecten papyraceus and Goniatites sphcericus being 

 the most frequent ; and at Bilboa, about four miles south-west of Car- 

 low, small bivalve shells of the genera Myacites and Myalina, locally 

 termed "beans," were very prevalent throughout the shales forming 

 the roof of the coal, with Crustacea of the Limuloid type, allied to a 

 group found in the lower coal measures of Coalbrookedale, Shropshire, 

 first discovered by Mr. Gr. H. Kinahan at the Bilboa collieries, and de- 

 scribed by me* under the names of Belinurus Regince and B. arcuaius. A 

 very interesting group of extinct reptiles and fish from the Jarrow Col- 

 liery was first brought to notice by Mr. W. B. Brownrigg, and is now 

 under description by Professor Huxley. 



The collieries in the neighbourhood of Killenaule, county of Tip- 

 perary, I visited with Mr. Joseph O'Kelly, in 1858. Plant impressions 

 were found to be particularly abundant in the shales, consisting prin- 

 cipally of calamites and ferns. The Leinster coal field, in which these 

 collieries are situate, is about forty miles in length, its greatest breadth 

 being fourteen miles. The large extent of coal measure strata which 

 for the most part bounds the coast on the south-west of Ireland for 

 upwards of seventy miles, with a breadth at its widest part, north of 

 the Kiver Shannon, of between forty and fifty miles, has very few pro- 

 ductive beds of coal, and that only at its southern extremity. It is 

 divided by the River Shannon, the northern portion being in the county 

 of Clare, the southern in those of Kerry and Limerick. 



In the county of Limerick, at Eoynes Island, on the River Shannon, 

 fossil Plants are comparatively few, the fossils consisting for the most 

 part of shells of Mollusca, which were found to be uncompressed and 

 very abundant in calcareous nodules from the lower coal measure shales, 

 composing the cliffs on the shore, the shales themselves being also full 

 of the usual shells which characterize these deposits, and indicate strata 

 belonging to the coal formation. At the old collieries near Grlin, on 

 the same river, the shales over the coal which was formerly worked 

 there were observed to be full of the remains of Plants, principally 

 ferns. Nearly all the species were found to be identical with those 

 from Coalbrookedale, in Shropshire, and Newcastle, in the North of 

 England. In other parts of the country where coal strata occurred, as 

 well as in Kerry and Clare (parts of the same coal field), collections of 

 fossils have been made both from the shales and sandstone. At some places 

 the assemblage consisted of marine shells only, occasionally mixed with 

 a few Plant fragments, such as small flattened stems without leaves, 

 and, more rarely, accompanied by the remains of fish ; entire skeletons 



* Explanation to Sheet 137 of the " Memoirs of the Geological Survey," and in the 

 11 Annals of Natural History," 1863, vol. xi. 



