384. 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



white, stand out well on the black ground of the limestone. "We visited 

 the shores of a beautiful lake some three miles from Plorence Court, 

 and, on the banks of the stream flowing from the Garble Arch, might 

 have filled a cart with choice carboniferous fossils of the Calp series. 

 One patch on the shores of the Lough was covered with the lovely 

 grass of the Parnassus {Parmssia palustris), with its delicate cream- 

 coloured flowers fringed with white nectaries. This Lough is famous 

 for the fresh-water Astacus (or cray-fish), which grows here to a large 

 size. The heron rose lazily upon our approach, and groups of wild duck 

 floated upon the waters. We made an expedition to the upper lime- 

 stone district of Ben TTaglin, west of Florence Court, and took the 

 opportunity of visiting one of the two original Piorence Court yews in 

 the garden of a descendant of the discoverer, a tenant of the Earl of 

 Enniskillen. The sister tree is at Florence Court, and from these have 

 been propagated the now widely-cultivated Irish yew. This tree is a 

 hijlrid, but how the hybridity was brought about is still a mystery. 

 The old trees were found as dwarfling plants, by the farmer who 

 discovered them, on the very summit of Kulkeagh, a mountain of 

 milstone-grit that covers up the upper limestone of Een ]S"aglin. "We 

 have no representation in our western districts of England either of the 

 calp or the upper limestone series, so we would advise every geologist 

 to pay attention to their development in the I^orth of Ireland ; and, if 

 time allows, to trace the rocks from Knockshinny, on the west shore of 

 Loch Erne, to Benbulben and Sligo. In the north of England (York- 

 shire and Durham), these Irish limestones are represented by the Great 

 Scaur series. The limestone of Een I^"aglin supplies the collector of 

 fossils with the somewhat rare Pentremites ovalts, an echinodermatous 

 animal of the Elastoidea family, and shaped like a minute sea-urchin ; 

 and the Tunbridge fern Hi/menGj^hjIhim Tunhnd(/ense," grows upon 

 the summit of the hill. A wild scene of heathery moor and moss 

 stretches westward from the hill-top towards the coast. 



The traveller would do well to ascend Kulkeagh by the way of the 

 Marble Arch, where a fine wild dell is wrought by the rivulet which 

 Hows from the mountain to the lake. The Marble Arch is a sub- 

 terranean cavern with the roof fallen in, and with wood, rocks, and 

 gushing water, forms a highly picturesque and pleasant scene. ITearer 

 Ivulkcagh is anotlicr cavern, where one of our attendants informed us 

 he had often distilled ''potheen," and fried black trout and praties 



