SYMONDS — NOTES OF A GEOLOGIST IN IRELAND. 



385 



''far from the light and the exciseman." Goniatites, Posidonomyae, and 

 beautiful corals may be obtained by following the banks of the streams 

 that flow from a small lake beneath the escarpment of Kulkeagh, and 

 which we traced through the moors ; and for sections or fossils we 

 cannot recommend this route too highl5^ 



The coal-measures are miserable representatives, as regards that 

 precious mineral, of our English equivalents, and probably have been 

 much denuded. Coal-plants are abunJant with marine fossils, such as 

 BelleropJwn and Pecten papyraceus, but I think that the Irish series 

 of coal-measures are no more than the millstone -grit (E-osser seams) of 

 the South "Wales basin ; the true coal-series being altogether absent. 

 Ballycastle, Dungannon, and Coal Island are the localities whereat to 

 study these coal-measures. Tor the northward-bound traveller our 

 note-book furnishes the following localities, from the information given 

 us by Mr. John Kelly, for unconformable junctions of Old Eed 

 conglomerate (or its equivalent) with mica-slates ; these mica-slates 

 being most probably altered Lower Silurians of the Lingula or Llandeilo 

 age : — Sligo, Lugnadulfa, seven miles west of Ballysadare, and 

 Clonacool, thirteen miles west of Cooloony. At Eundoran, three miles 

 west of Ballyshannon, is a very peculiar section, the Old Eed being cut 

 off by a fault, and the Calp wanting. Donegal, Eallykillowen, eleven 

 miles north east of Eallyshannon, and CormuUin, eight miles north-east, 

 furnish excellent sections. 



"We returned to Dublin, via Cavan and Mullingar, a most unin- 

 teresting route, but well worth seeing once in one's life, were 

 it merely to gain an idea of a true bog-country. Kilnaleck, south 

 of Cavan, and near Loch Sheelin, is interesting as furnishing Lower 

 Silurian anthracitic coal, first discovered by Mr. J. Kelly. This 

 is a very important rock, and will probably occupy the attention of 

 geologists very particularly, in order to determine the character and 

 status of the plants that formed so old a coal-seam. Were they merely 

 marine fucoids and sea- wrack, sea- weeds of primeval oceans ? or were 

 they land-plants that bent to the breeze and ripened to the sun of ages 

 so distant that time furnishes no reckoning-log ? Videlimus ! 



