the extension of knowledge of its general principles there is being diffused sounder views regarding the mode in which the outward configuration of the earth's surface has been brought about. Thanks to the labours of the modern school of geologists, the worthy disciples of Playfair and Hutton (if not of still older philosophers), it is generally recognised that the features of the landscape are due to the action of water, under its varied forms and modes of working; whether as rain, rivers, torrents, ocean-waves, snow and ice, operating on rocks of varying composition, degrees of hardness, and kinds of structure. We now know that the form of the loftiest mountain equally with that of the slightest eminence, the extent of the widest plain equally with that of the narrowest gorge, the rugged coast-line with its bold headlands and deep indentations, or the featureless shore which descends almost imperceptibly into the sea-all owe their existence to the great sculptor, WATER ;-slowly, almost imperceptibly, working on the rocks which have been placed within its reach, where they have been elevated into dry land by the action of those terrestrial forces which, from the earliest times in the world's history, have been converting land into sea, and sea into land. Upon such principles I shall endeavour to place before the reader in a connected form the origin of those features of the landscape which have always made Ireland so attractive to the traveller from other lands, and have endeared her soil to her own people. CONTENTS. Table of Formations-Cambrian Rocks-Lower Silurian Rocks -Metamorphosed Silurians of the Districts of West Gal- way, Donegal, and Derry-Upper Silurian Beds-Old Red Sandstone-Carboniferous Beds-Lower Carboniferous PAGE Leading Physical Features-Central Plain-North-west High- |