•RESEARCHED AMONG THE PAL/EOZOIC ROCKS OF IRELAND. 117 
stone, jasper, and fragments of other rocks, united into a hard mass 
by a mineral paste or matrix. The pebbles are sometimes hardly set 
in the cementing matter, and sometimes so loose as to be easily de¬ 
tached by a blow of the hammer, leaving a smooth cavity. In this 
part there are sometime alternations of red sandy beds, almost with¬ 
out pebbles. In some localities there are in the mass rounded stones 
of mica slate, with very little else, as at Cushendall, or green chloritic 
slate or green grit, as at Lane, near Skerries. Its whole thickness 
varies in different places from 20 to 100 feet. 
2. Next comes a series of Red Sandstones, and red shales, in al¬ 
ternate bands, between 200 and 600 feet thick. 
3. The upper part is composed of thick beds of sandstone, mostly 
of a whitish or yellowish colour. This upper part of it is the Yellow 
Sandstone of Mr. Griffith. It sometimes contains thin beds of lime¬ 
stone, or thin gray or red bands of calcareous slate or shale, inter- 
stratified with the sandstone; those beds of limestone and slate all 
contain the usual fossils of the mountain limestone. The yellow 
part of this sandstone is from 50 to 200 feet in thickness, and some¬ 
times contains a few of the fossils. 
A good type of this rock is visible at Templetown, near Hook 
Head, in the county of Wexford, where it is exposed in a coast 
section, and the bottom and the top are clearly seen. 
The typical character is often, however, different from this at 
Hook Head. In the North of Ireland the prevailing colour of the 
rock is red; so it is in the eastern part of Tyrone near Cookstown, in 
Down at Castle Espie, and at Armagh; while in the South and West 
of Ireland the yellow, colour prevails: this is the case in the King’s 
and Queen’s Counties, where this rock is seen mantling round the 
Slievebloom Mountains, near Mountmellick, Kinitty, and Roscrea; in 
Tipperary, at Borrisoleigh and Cappawhite; in Clare, round the 
Derrybrian Mountains, near Woodford, Gort, and Scariff; and in 
Kerry, at Kerry Head, and Slievemish near Tralee. I may add, that 
on the east side of Knocksheegowna, near Borrisokane, there is very 
little Red Sandstone at all, the rock being yellow to the lowest beds 
visible, and at Toberelathan, six miles S. W. of Loughrea, a yellow 
colour prevails, even in the lower beds of the conglomerate, and here 
there is a clear and good section. 
I have just stated that the Old Red Sandstone lies unconformably 
on the rocks which support it. This, in Ireland, is generally gray 
