254 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
The coast-line now strikes nearly north and south, and is no longer 
indented by deep bays with jutting headlands, yet still we find that 
the submerged peat is present. I have heard it asserted that the 
anchor brings up peat off the coast to the north of Cahore Point, in 
the county Wexford, and I know this to be the fact to the south of 
Dalkey Island, and between that place and Bray. 
The distance along the coast from Tralong Bay and Eosscarbery 
on the south to Dalkey on the north-east, over which the submerged 
peat has been observed, is fully 195 miles ; and I have little doubt 
that along the south-west coast, to the west of Eosscarbery, com- 
prising Eoaringwater Bay, Dunmann's Bay, Bantry Bay, Kenmare 
Bay, Dingle Bay, and Tralee Bay, all these deep indentations were 
during the formation of this peat, either entirely or partially dry land, 
and covered with a luxuriant forest, which likewise formed a deposit 
layer of peat similar to that just noticed ; and if we do not find 
traces of it at these places, the fact is due to the destructive action 
of the Atlantic on such an exposed coast, and the consequent removal 
of the peaty matter. 
Until we have some information as to the distance from the 
coast-line and the extreme depth beneath the sea at which this bog 
terminates, we cannot speculate on the probable amount of elevation 
and depression to which the south and south-east of Ireland was 
subjected during the growth and deposition of this remarkable for- 
mation. It need not however have been very great ; two or three 
hundred feet of elevation would now, even, cause a wonderful varia- 
tion in the coast-line, and leave bare a wide belt of level land around 
it ; and if the climate was more genial than at present, and other 
circumstances were favourable, we must suppose that it would be co- 
vered with forest after the lapse of ages. All that would be required 
is Time, and, from all that we can understand, Nature is most lavish 
of this necessary aid to the production of even her latest geological 
works. 
ON THE OEIGIN OF SPECIES. 
By Pkoeessoe William King, 
{Queen's College, Galway^ Queen's University in Ireland. 
It would be an insult to reason to deny the power of the Omni- 
potent to create at once plants and animals out of inorganic or any 
