SYMONDS — NOTES OF A GEOLOGIST IN IRELAND. 
377 
accumulation of shale and clay, and being less frequently consolidated 
into limestone, while there was a great abundance of marine animals, 
especially gigantic Cephalopods, of which the Ammonite, Belemuite, 
and Sepia were the predominant forms. The sea, too, was probably, 
during most part of the Liassic era, of considerable depth, many parts of 
which must have resembled a garden of flowers, from the groyes of 
beautiful Pentacrinites, bendiug their graceful heads with outstretched 
arms to seize their food. Amongst these many strange species of fish 
disported themselves, until dispersed in flying shoals as they sought to 
escape the capacious jaws of some hungry saurian in search of prey. 
We know from the occurrence of plants and insects and tlie bones of 
Ptcrodactyles that the land and air had their strange inhabitants, and 
that, in many cases, the coast- line was not far distant whence the rivers 
conveyed their relics into the ocean ; and the contiguity of the insect- 
limestones in most localities in Gloucestershire to rocks of greater 
antiquity indicates, with something like certainty, where the old land 
might be looked for, though, as to its extent or general outline, it is, 
of course, now impossible even to conjecture, We must be satisfied to 
search for truth in a humble, patient spirit, while we contemplate with 
wonder and delight the marvellous records of the past, which is indeed 
as a fairy scene seemingly rising up and passing away from us as in a 
dream. 
Is'OTES OF A GEOLOGIST IN" IRELAND DUlllNG AUGUST 
AND SEPTEMBER, 1857. 
By the Rev. W. S. Symokds, Rector of Pcndock, and President of 
the Malvern Natural History Eield Club. 
(Continued from page S35.) 
A NOTICE of the geology around Killarney having already appeared in 
the Gkologist, by " A Brother of the Hammer," it will be suflScient for 
us to indicate the best localities for sections and fossils, premising that 
the upper and lower Old Red Sandstone are unequivocally represented in 
Ireland, independently of the upper groups of conglomerates, and red and 
yellow sandstones. 
The Old Red Conglomerate in Ireland is in many jjlaces uncon- 
formable to the Old Red Sandstone, and constitutes the base of the 
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