SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
aia 
the other. The highest mountains are situated in the northern 
div ision, the ost elevat d of which, called Snei.eldt, is 2000 
feer above the level of the sea. 
The rocks of hich this country is composed, belong chiefly 
to the transition class of Werner. Small g a ned granite oc- 
curs only in one or two places, and at an elevation of not more 
than three or four hundred feet above the sea. Gness and 
mica slate appear to be entirely wanting, as also are the oidest 
members of th clav slate formation. The newer portion of 
the clay slate formation occupies the most elevated parts of the 
Island, where it appears under the form of hone slate, roofing 
slate. 
From these rocks the passage to the transition class takes 
place by insensible degrees ; and of this the oldest member 
that presents uself is Grey-wakke The trait occupied by this 
latter rock is, for the most part, less elevated than that where 
the play slate makes its appearance and incloses it. The beds 
dip south, more or less, in the east, and this inclination varies 
from vertical to about 3 5°. In this formation occurs Grey- 
wakk , Grey-wakke slate, and granular quartz, slightly mica- 
reous ; in none of which rocks are any organic remains to be 
perce ived. 
The preceding formation is covered by a deposit of lime- 
stone, less elevated above the sea than the Grey-wakke, and an 
Inclination approaching nearer to horizontal. It consists* of beds 
of shell limestone, resembling that of Kilkenny, and of West- 
moreland. Cumberland, and Durham, together with magnesian 
limestone, sometimes in separate beds, and often in distinct 
patches enclosed within the other. This magnesian limestone, 
except in a single instance, appeared destitute of organic re- 
mains, but in some places encloses roundish nodules of glassy 
quartz 
In one or two places the limestone is covered by an unstra- 
tified mass of transition amygtaloid ; the base of which is a 
greenish wakke, containing nodules of lamellar calcareous spar, 
invested by a thin coating of iron pyrites. 
Ot i he Floctz, or secondary rocks, the only one that occurs is 
the oldest sandstone, some of the beds of which are so coarse 
grained, as to merit the name of Conglomerate, in which case 
it consists chiefly of fragments of quartz, with a few scraps 
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