Devon and Cornwall, Belgium, the Eifel, ^c. 291 
vicinage of Castle island. The former is represented as con- 
stituting merely a cap or sheet formed upon an inclined plane 
from west to east, the strata corresponding, and succeeding 
each other in that direction to the junction with the carboni- 
ferous limestone. I know of no such arrangement. On the 
contrary, the strata of the old red sandstone are accumulated 
to a great depth, and certainly in some quarters at least to the 
level of the sea, if not deeper, being disposed in a gently 
arched form from north to south, as may be well observed in 
the defiles and glens which penetrate fron the north into the 
interior of that mountain range*. In this series I have not 
observed a general dip to the east, the strata even in the most 
eastern quarter (including beds of red clay and red slaty clay) 
still preserving the flat arched arrangement from north to 
south ; and it is only at the eastern foot of Slieve Meesh that 
other beds appear dipping to the east of south, and which 
from their dissimilarity altogether to the old red sandstone 
formation of the Slieve Meesh range, I could only view as a 
protruding portion of the subjacent transition rocks continued 
from the west. I know of no organic remains to invalidate 
this conclusion. The Spiriferce, Prodiictce, Terebratulce, and 
Crinoidea that I met with were too indistinct to admit of de- 
termining the species, but I am mistaken if there be not an 
Orthis among the number ; while the Favosites which I no- 
ticed I apprehend to be F, Jihrosa, This eastern foot of the 
Slieve Meesh is represented by Mr. Griffith as composed of 
a succession of beds of yellow and grey quartzy sandstone, 
dark grey clayslate, sandstone, dark grey clayslate, grey 
quartzy sandstone, alternating limestone and greenish clay- 
slate, against which the carboniferous limestone is exhibited 
as abutting in unconformable position f. The sandstone is 
stated to contain calamites, and the general series to abound 
with the casts of fossils, whose distinctive characters, it is ad- 
mitted, it is difficult to recognise, but among them are Pro- 
ductae, Spiriferee, Terebratulce, Crinoidea, and corals; and the 
upper beds of the greenish grey clayslate are said to be identi- 
cal with those which occur alternating with limestone in the 
peninsula of Muckruss. I confess I have not traced any such 
uninterrupted succession as is here described, the country in 
general being well covered up ; but if we suppose it to be 
correct, there is no direct proof that such succession belongs 
to the carboniferous series. From the quarry which 1 have 
* Memoir on the South of Ireland, §§ 10, 13, 49, in Geol. Trans., vol. v., 
second series. 
t Journal of Geol. Soc. of Dublin, vol. ii. pp, 82, 83, and the lower section 
in plate iv. 
