On leaving Dublin, we travelled northwards, for the purpose of examining the carboniferous rocks, and visiting the magnificent collection of fossil-fishes in the museum of the Earl of Enniskillen; we then journeyed south for Killarney and the Dingle district, but as it may be more convenient to the reader to travel geologically, we will reverse the order of our journey, and visit the Upper Silurian and Old Red Sandstone districts before we examine the carboniferous deposits.The lower Cambrian rocks of Wales, of which the Oldhamia-schists of Ireland are believed to be the equivalents, pass upwards by insensible gradations into the Lingula-flags, to which they are altogether conformable. The Lingula-flags are reckoned to be four or five thousand feet thick, and the Llandeilo or Builth-beds, which cover up these, are probably as thick; but geologists are, as yet, uncertain whether they possess in Ireland any true equivalents either of the Lingula-flags or of the Llandeilo and Builth deposits. There are, however, fossiliferous rocks of the Bala and Caradoc age in Ireland similar to those which, in Wales, succeed conformably to the Llandeilo and Builth beds, and they may be examined at Courtown, in the county of Wicklow, and again at Tramore, south of Waterford. They are unconformable to the rocks below, which are undoubtedly Cambrian, and thence, we imagine, has arisen the suspicion that the Lingula-beds and Llandeilo-flags have never been deposited in Ireland, or that if they were, they have been denuded and swept away before the deposition of the Bala or Caradoc strata.
Figures of characteristic British fossils, with descriptive remarks. By W. H. Baily, F.L.S., F.G.S., &c. Part III. Plates 21–30. Upper Silurian and Devonian. 8vo. London: Van Voorst, 1871
