Having reviewed, in our first paper on this subject, the tipper portion of the Lower Oolite, down to the Stonesfield slate inclusive, we propose in this to give some account of the lowest member of this formation, the Inferior Oolite, and then to pass on, in descending order, to the Lias. The district under consideration has, of late years, been very generally and carefully examined by many able and experienced geologists; but nevertheless additions to our knowledge of its Geology are from time to time being made; and our own practical experience in the field confirms the belief often expressed by others, that, however much may have been done in any particular spot, there is always something left to reward intelligence and zea

The student, however, must not be discouraged at being at first able to add but few new facts to the list; he must bear in mind that one truth well authenticated is worth a hundred hasty generalizations and unfounded conclusions. The book of Nature is open to all who choose to read it; and he who, studying it in an honest and earnest spirit, adds something to the stock of general knowledge, even though it should be but a little, yet that little is worth recording, and is deserving of support and encouragement from the scientific public. Without actual reference to the wonderful revelations of Geology, our great poet, Shakespeare, has said, almost prophetically, that there are “sermons in stones, and good in everything;” and, certainly, the geological student may literally adopt this motto.

Reader, have you ever visited the far-famed Lakes of Killarney? If you have not, by all means go there; and if you are a geologist as well as a lover of beautiful scenery, the pleasure of the visit will be greatly enhanced.

There you have lofty and rugged mountains (some of them clothed with wood nearly to the summit), from whose sides gush limpid fountains, increasing in force as they descend, and in their onward course madly leaping down the steep cataracts, until they are at last lost in the majestic lake beneath,—the admixture and variety of the whole being beautifully harmonized and softened by the extraordinarily luxuriant foliage of thousands of plants, from the stately oak, the bushy arbutus, and dark green holly, to the humble but graceful “London Pride” (Saxifraga umbrosa), the abundance of which seldom fails to attract the notice of the most casual observer.

The mountains are formed of rocks of the “old red sandstone period,” the upper division of that group or “yellow sandstone” being generally observed at the foot of the slope, this being again overlaid conformably by the “mountain-limestone,” which extends in many a contortion over the plain.

In the rocks of the “old red sandstone” a geological eye will at once be struck by the fine examples of glacial action exhibited in the scratches and groovings of their surfaces, caused by the sharp edges of blocks and fragments of other rocks, contained in icebergs, having passed over them; such markings being, for a considerable extent, parallel, or nearly so.

The unstratified Plutonic rocks are considered to form, as we have intimated, the common base of the stratified beds all over the globe. With them, however, we have little to do in this place. Our labours commence with the stratified, and we should even have excluded the so-called “Azoic,” had not that term been recently subjected to considerable restriction by the discovery of organic remains in some of its members; and, as it is still likely, by further researches, to be totally absorbed into the Palæozoic system, we append an ideal section representing the sequence of formation of the most ancient groups of fossiliferous rocks, with the relative position of those primordial conglomerates, flags, and schists in which as yet no organic remains have been found. Whether, at the vastly remote period at which those isolated masses, still ranked as Azoic, were formed, the advent of life had really not taken place on our planet, or whether those masses are the few remnants of a still older stage of our world than any presented to us by the recognised series of fossiliferous rocks, has yet to be determined by the investigations of geologists—but in their massiveness and their vast age they must ever be regarded with veneration and wonder.

At the extremity of a pretty bay, on the coast of Yorkshire, stands the town of Whitby, known to every geologist for the numerous treasures of organic remains which the Lias beds, there outcropping on the shore, have furnished at various times.

Nor is Whitby wanting in historical associations. It was there, in Anglo-Saxon days, stood the far-famed monastery of Streones-healh, of which St. Hilda, the relative of Northumbria's powerful monarch, Edwin, was the abbess. It was there the famous council was held to decide the keeping of Easter (A.D., 664); it was on those rugged shores of the North Sea that the early stand was made by Colman on behalf of the native religion against the then increasing dominion of the Romish Church. It was there reposed the remains of Edwin, Oswy, Aelfleda, and of the Saxon Hilda herself. Associated with its monastic rule were many of the famous men of the olden times—Bosa, Aetla, Oftfor, Wilfred, and Cædmon, to whom Bede says sublime strains of poetry were so natural that he dreamed in verse, and composed in sleep that which he penned on awaking. And the history of Whitby is pleasingly associated with its geology by the legend of its saint.