On the lower Carboniferous beds of the peninsula of Hook, county of Wexford / by Samuel Haughton.

  • Haughton, Samuel.
Date:
[1855]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the lower Carboniferous beds of the peninsula of Hook, county of Wexford / by Samuel Haughton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    on the east, to a point half-way between Harry loch and Templetown church on the west. The nature of the junction between the con- glomerate and slate is well shown in the face of the cliff at Carnivan Head. The beds of slate are nearly vertical, and the Red Sandstone and conglomerate beds are inclined at an angle of 10° to the horizon. I propose to place, provisionally, the uppermost limit of these beds at a line drawn from the rocks north of Sandeel Bay on the east, to the boundary of the townlands of Templetown and Houseland on the harbour, or west side. My reasons for fixing on this boundary will be explained in the next section. Within the limits I have as- signed, the rocks consist of slightly inclined beds of massive red con- glomerate, alternating with layers of red sandstone and red shale. They are quite destitute of fossils; and may be considered as typical beds of the Old Red Sandstone of the south-east of Ireland. I have measured the thickness of these beds in a variety of Avays, and esti- mate it at 1150 feet. The sea must have been shallow during the depo- sition of these beds, as it is not possible to conceive any action save that of coast waves capable of forming such masses of rolled shingle, alternating as it does with sands and mud, tinged with peroxide of iron, evidently introduced by currents of a less violent character than those which laid down the rolled shingle of the sea beaches, which formed the materials out of which the red sandstone conglo- merate was elaborated. 2. PLAKT BEDS. The uppermost portion of the sandstones and conglomerates consists of alternating beds of red conglomerate, red micaceous sand- stones, and coarse red shale, succeeded conformably by gray mica- ceous sandstones, gray conglomerate, and dark gray shale, with yellow and white sandstones alternating Avith reddish argillaceous sandstones,—the entire series being characterized by the presence of imperfectly preserved remains of plants, which invariably occur in the gray and white micaceous layers of sandstone, and never in the red sandstone and shales Avhich alternate with them. In one locality on the western side, these remains become so numerous as to constitute thin seams of anthracite, from one to two inches in thickness. The fossil plants, although very imperfectly preserved, present a general resemblance to the forms of fossil plants found at Tallowbridgc, in beds of similar age, some of which were figured by