Extracts from the Minute Book of the Geological Society . 597 
has revived the business of mining, in which the peasantry were 
formerly employed so effectually, that miners may be procured in 
plenty on the spot, while the local advantages of cheap and abundant 
markets, inexhaustible fisheries, and a low price of labour, are in 
that part of the kingdom peculiarly great. 
Mr. Herbert made one trial only without any previous boring, 
and found a thin sheet of stone coal at four fathoms depth, and for 
the most part slate hardening into rock over the coal, so as to afford 
a very safe roof. The road thence to the head of water at Buleragh, 
or as it is better known by the name of Cloghareen, has a regular 
descent, except a quarter of a mile up hill ; whilst the source of 
water at Cloghareen, formerly employed to turn tilt-hammers, 
water-blasts, &c. is perpetual, and uninfluenced by any season. 
The high mountains south-west of the mines are a brown, tending 
to blue slaty rock very dense, where cut deeply by torrents. These 
mountains are evidently imposed on a foundation of limestone of so 
fine a grain as to take a polish, and afford marbles of a great variety 
of colours; red and white, and green and white, are the predominant. 
The lake is the boundary of the two substances. The gentle ascents 
and bases of all the mountains, as well as the plains on every side of 
the mountains, are of the same limestone bursting out even at twelve 
miles south at the sea ; but in some places varying in the level from 
horizontal to a dip of about 30°, so that there must be fractures or 
faults in it. This limestone is the metallic bed at Ross Mine and at 
Mucrus ; the coal is found in the slate hills, and imposed also on the 
limestone. 
The vein of Mucrus has been held in high estimation in every age 
of which tradition has preserved any accounts. Rude and laborious 
traces of ancient minings remain in several places, and are vulgarly, 
though erroneously, known by the name of Danish works. Many 
