184 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



[August 



GEOLOGICAL NOTES OF THE SCENERY OF THE 



KILLARNEY DISTRICT. 



BY CHARLES WHITE. 



(Read before the Warrington Field Club.) 



Killarney has for so long a period been famed for the beauty of its 

 scenery, that it may be taken for certain that what has satisfied many 

 generations must contain abiding elements of charm and fascination. 

 The appreciation of wild natural scenery is not indeed of ancient origin, 

 or dates back further than the middle of the last century. Previously 

 to the poet Gray, the work of nature was not considered perfect until it 

 had been subjected to the hand of man. Mountains were horrid wastes, 

 and trees must be planted and trimmed in particular modes or devices 

 ere they could please ; the regularity of a canal was preferred to the 

 windings of a river, and a vista to be enjoyed from a comfortable seat 

 was considered much superior to an open and broad landscape. Gray 

 was the pioneer of Ruskin. In his poems, but more especially in his 

 letters, he showed that nature when unadorned is adorned the most, and 

 he led the way in a growing admiration for such scenery as the Lake 

 District or the hilly parts of Yorkshire afforded. It is somewhat 

 strange that in the pursuit of the new fashion, Irish scenery should at 

 the commencement of this century hold the first place in the estimation 

 of the lovers of the picturesque. It must be remembered that not until 

 the advent of Wordsworth and Southey, as illustrators of the English 

 Lake District, or of Sir Walter Scott as the guide to the beauties of the 

 Scottish Highlands, did any numbers of people visit these two regions 

 with feelings of admiration or content, and there was really far more 

 intercourse with English society and its offshoots who constituted the 

 English garrison in Ireland than with the inhabitants of our own 

 British North Country. A proof of this may be found in the fact that 

 this book — Weld on the Scenery of Killarney — was published in 1808, in 

 this elaborate style, to supply a demand which must have then existed. 

 We may then take for granted that Killarney was famous for its beauty 

 long before the days of railways or cheap trippers. I do not wish at all to 

 examine the sources of this reputation, or to engage in a metaphysical 

 discussion as to the elements of the sublime and .beautiful. I want to 

 take you to the landscape, and then point out how its prominent and 

 most characteristic features have been formed. I have always found 

 the study of the geological phenomena of the district most interesting, 

 even though it were entirely unaccompanied by any of those subtle 

 associated ideas of humanity which it is so difficult to divest the mind 

 of. We are so apt to think that everything has been made for us, our 

 use or our enjoyment, that we can hardly contemplate the effects of 



