LOCALITIES OF IRISH CARBONIFEROUS FOSSILS. 
43 
Holeopen Bay, in the county of Cork, is six miles south of Kin sale. 
Goniatites, and shells much resembling Posidonise, are got here 
in black slate; the slate and the fossils much altered and dis¬ 
torted, apparently by metamorphic action. The kinds would 
suggest the idea that the slate is an altered millstone grit. 
Hook Head, or Hook Point, in Wexford, is situated on the east 
side of Waterford Harbour, and the shore here affords a fine sec¬ 
tion of the lower part of the carboniferous rocks. First, red 
conglomerates and red sandstone, with some beds of yellow in as¬ 
cending southwards, and a few beds of red or blue shale; the 
upper part all yellow or gray, and a little calcareous, and it is 
in these the fossils first appear. Next comes a series of thin beds 
of limestone, and black shale alternating. The limestone rises 
in large flags, of which both sides are covered with a profusion 
and variety of fossils. This is on the townland of Portersgate. 
Over it lie yellow sandstone and calcareous gray sandstone, 
and this again is succeeded by thin beds and afterwards thick 
beds of limestone alternating with shale, for more than a mile 
along the shore, but nearly level. Next, towards Hook Point, 
the whole becomes limestone, with but a few and very thin 
beds of shale. In the whole peninsula, the rock is so well 
exposed along the sea-shore that it is one of the finest localities 
in Ireland for fossils. Very fine specimens of crinoid heads have 
been found near the Point. They are usually got in the thin 
beds of shale which separate the limestone beds, where the ac¬ 
tion of the waves carries away the soft matter of the shale, and 
leaves them standing in relief on the surface of the bed of lime¬ 
stone. In considering them, on the spot, the idea is suggested 
that they grew on the surface of a bed of limestone in the sea— 
as seaweed now does—that a flood came over the place, charged 
with sand and mud, and killed the animals, which, therefore, lay 
dead, and were buried in the muddy deposit left by the waters, 
which is usually from three to six inches thick between the beds 
of limestone. The heads and stems, for some feet in length, are 
got together, lying in these thin shale beds, and in some cases 
have all their fine markings beautifully shown. 
IIorath, in Meath, is five miles north of Kells. The rock is the 
dark limestone, which lies near the base of that subdivision. 
Several fossils are found in it—Better ophon apertus and Pleuro- 
rhyncus giganteus are common. 
