NEIGHBOURHOOD OF CORK. 91 



attend to their relations and their position, it might, 

 perhaps, be more convenient to regard them all as 

 varieties of grey-wacke, verging to quartz on the 

 one hand, and to slate-clay on the other. The 

 occurrence of numerous contemporaneous veins of 

 quartz, so characteristic of grey-wacke, gives encou- 

 ragement to the adoption of such a nomenclature. 



II. — Limestone, 



The beds of limestone occur chiefly on the south 

 side of the Lee. They observe the same line of 

 bearing as the strata of grey-wacke on the north 

 side of the river. The limestone is in general com- 

 pact, — of a bluish grey colour,— of various degrees of 

 intensity, — massive, — dull, or feebly glimmering, 

 from an intermixture of calcareous spar, — fracture 

 compact, even, with a slight tendency to splintery, — 

 fragments indeterminately angular, rather sharp 

 edged, — feebly translucent on the edges,— streak 

 light coloured, inclining to ash grey. It is universally 

 used for building, and is sometimes polished as a 

 marble. In some cases, from an intermixture of 

 the bwwnstone, the marble is variegated. 



In some varieties, especially those containing pe- 

 trifactions, the fracture is granularly foliated, 

 and the lustre glistening* Some varieties are dark- 

 er in the colour, and become fine-grained in the frac- 

 ture, and pass into common compact lucullite. 



