38 
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
Dr. Cane, in the absence of the writer, read a paper by the Rev. James Graves— 
ON THE GEOLOGY OF THE COUNTY OF KILKENNY. 
“ There are certain subjects, ignorance on which is, by universal consent, held 
to be deplorable if not shameful; and the character of the age we live in tends 
every day to the enlargement of the limits within which ignorance is a disgrace. In 
the olden times of chivalry, learning was so little deemed essential to the knightly 
character, that the noble actually boasted of his incapacity to read or write, deeming 
all such effeminate acquirements only the fitting concern of the churchman, whose 
profession debarred him from the great business of war. Now, however, things have 
taken a turn tout au contraire; the circles of science are rapidly widening, and fields 
of knowledge, but lately held the peculiar demesnes of the professor^ are cultivated 
by the many. Natural history, geology, and chemistry have been made part of an 
academical education, and drawing and music bid fair soon to be as essential to the 
educated classes as correct grammar or orthography. 
“These observations must plead my excuse for bespeaking your attention to the 
geology of our county of Kilkenny ; and I am pleased to believe, that to many of my 
hearers the language of the geologist is not an unknown tongue. Nature’s great 
bard, Shakspeare, who seems to have anticipated nearly all the grand discoveries of 
science, found ‘ sermons in stonesand sublime, indeed, are the records from 
which the student of geology derives his knowledge. As he humbly and reverently 
reads the world’s history in the rocky strata, which form the leaves of this great 
volume, his mind expands; he finds himself capable of forming ideas of duration, 
of power, and of all-planning design, which lead him to the contemplation of the 
Everlasting—the Almighty—the Omnipotent Creator. [Mr. Graves here entered 
into a detailed description of the classification and nomenclature of rocks, as given 
by ColonelPortlock, in his useful “Rudimentary Treatise on Geology;” and then 
proceeded as follows, to apply the subject to the geology of the county of Kil¬ 
kenny] :— 
“ The plutonic rocks are found in small patches to the south-east of the county, in 
the form of granite. Granite forms the core of Brandon hill, over Graigue-na- 
managh, which has evidently been protruded from below, through the sedimentary 
strata which rest against its sides; these sedimentary rocks have been again re-acted 
on by this plutonic agency, and in many places have, in consequence, assumed the 
metamorphic character ; the greater portion of the southern tract of our county is 
composed of the older sedimentary sand-stones , clay-slates , and brecchias; 
the boundary line of this formation extends from the neighbourhood of 
Graigue-na-managh round by Thomastown, by Knocktopher, and Kilmoganny, 
to Garryricken, near Slieve-na-man. These formations contain many useful 
building stones; as, for instance, the granite, and many of the sand-stones. Its mill¬ 
stone grits are worked at Drumdowney hill, and near Waterford ; whilst it likewise 
affords fine roofing slates from the quarries on the estate of our noble president, the 
Marquis of Ormonde, near Carrick-on-Suir, worked by our fellow-townsman, Alex¬ 
ander Colles, Esq. In the opening address, which I had the honour to deliver at the 
commencement of our last session, I alluded to the recent discovery of several mag¬ 
nificent fossil ferns, fruits, and fish, in the sandstone strata of Kiltorkan hill, which 
excited so much attention amongst the scientific men assembled in Belfast, in 1852, 
when the British Association held their annual congress there. These fossils 
present the most highly organised examples of animal and vegetable life, as yet 
found, in these very ancient sedimentary strata. The magnificence of the fronds of 
fern, only equalled in the present vegetation of the world by tree ferns of Australia, 
and to which, by the way, they are botanically related, may be imagined, when I 
tell you, that I have seen a slab of the Kiltorkan sandstone, in the Museum of 
Economic Geology, in Stephen’s-green, Dublin, nearly three feet square, and yet 
only containing a portion of a single fern-leaf. 
“ The mountain limestone , another, but very early sedimentary rock, occupies the 
remainder of the county of Kilkenny, or that portion lying north-west of the line I 
have already indicated as bounding the sandstone, and older sedimentary rocks. 
The limestone has been raised or canted upwards by a force acting in a northerly 
direction from below upwards; by this means the edges of the strata have been 
