CLASSIFICATION OF THE DEVONIAN AND CARBONIFEROUS ROCKS. 63 
The Society met on the 13th of June, 1855, on which occasion the 
following Paper was read. 
NOTES ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE DEVONIAN AND CARBONIFEROUS 
ROCKS OF THE SOUTH OF IRELAND. BY J. BEETE JUKES, ESQ., AND 
J. W. SALTER, ESQ. 
The authors, during the last month, had examined some of the prin¬ 
cipal sections in the south of Ireland, where the base of the Carbo¬ 
niferous rocks and the upper part of the Old Red Sandstone are to be 
seen: paying especial attention to the palaeontological evidence. They 
have arrived at the conclusion, that it is impossible to separate the 
so-called “Yellow Sandstone” of the south from the Old Red Sand¬ 
stone, on account of their physical union alone. The upper part of the 
Old Red Sandstone has, interstratified with the red sandstones, shales, 
and slates, certain beds of green and yellow shales, slates, and sand¬ 
stones ; and in these green and yellow shales, wherever they occur, 
and however deep down in the Old Red, are found remains of plants, 
chiefly Knorria dichotoma (Haughton), along with which are certain 
linear plants, generally branched, often with marks of a central pith, 
and bearing on the whole a stronger resemblance to succulent roots 
than to any other portions of vegetables. These are, probably, the 
Filicites dichotoma of Professor Haughton. In two places, namely, 
at Kiltorkan Hill, near Thomastown, and at Tivoli Villa, near Cork, 
large shells, Anodon Juhesii (Forbes), have been found with these 
plants, but no other mollusca have, as yet, been discovered in these 
beds. In both these localities, as also in others farther west, the 
Cyclopteris Hihernica is found abundantly. A species, or perhaps 
two, of Stigmaria, is not uncommon, but there appears to be no un¬ 
doubted evidence of the occurrence of Sigillaria or Lepidodendron, 
although the scales of fructification of a Lycopodiaceous plant have 
been found both at Kiltorkan and near Cork. The “ Yellow Sand¬ 
stone,” with these characters, forms the upper part of the Old Red 
Sandstone all along the south of Ireland, from the Hook in Wexford 
to the shores of Rantry Bay.* 
* This “ Yellow Sandstone” is obviously distinct in many lithological characters, 
as well as in fossils, from the Yellow Sandstone of the north of Ireland, as described by 
Dr. Griffith, that of the north being undoubtedly the base of the Carboniferous system 
there. 
Vol. yii. 
H 
