distinguish them from others of a nature totally different, are siliceous schistus, quartz, horn-stone, horn-porphyry, horn-slate, &c. ; but they exhibit so many varieties, and they graduate so minutely into each other, that it is not always easy to determine the class to which they belong, and to give them an appropriate name. Such confusion, moreover, has arisen in this branch of mineralogy, from the same terms having been employed by various writers to denote substances essentially different from each other, as well as from different terms having frequently been applied to the very same substances, that names have become of little import, and a precise knowledge of certain minerals can only be communicated by a minute description. The names I use are those which are applied to similar substances in the Leskean cabinet of minerals. The people of the country distinguish three varieties of the mountain stone, which they call green stone, brown stone, and gray stone these three sorts, it may be readily conceived, are those most generally met with. The first appears to be horn porphyry it is of a blueish green cast, with specks of feldspar distinctly visible throughout it with the naked eye. Small nodules of chlorite are frequently found enveloped in this stone. The brown sort is a horn-stone, of a deep ferruginous brown colour. The extremity of the peninsula is formed chiefly of this variety. The third sort is partly siliceous schistus, partly hornslate. On the side of the mountain. it lies in very distinct layers or strata, generally dipping to the south and south-west. The clefts between the larger strata are generally filled with rich earth; which, in the woody region on the borders of the upper lake, produces a very singular though not a very pleasing phænomenon; for there the trees, spontaneously springing up in these 8 intervals of fertility, display themselves, though in all the real wildness of neglected nature, rank above rank, with the apparent order of cultivated formality. The larger masses of this stone, in their original beds, do not show a tendency to break in any particular direction; but the fragments which have fallen from the heights, and been exposed for a length of time to the action of the weather, break longitudinally into slates of different size and thickness, prodigious heaps of which lie at the base of some of the mountains. Sometimes they are found sufficiently thin to cover the roofs of houses; but their principal use is in building dry walls, for which purpose their form is very convenient. Further observations on this subject will be deferred till we come to a more particular description of the mountains. On returning towards Mucruss house, after rambling through the wilds of the peninsula, the ornamental parts of the domain appear to have acquired additional charms. Indeed, during the height of summer, when the sultry heats are tempered by the breezes from the lake; when the air is filled with the fragrance of wild flowers and of the new-mown hay; and when the eye is enchanted with the beauty of the landscape in whatever direction it turns, one would be induced to imagine that this was the region of delight, where Nature had unlocked all her treasures. But the pleasure of the dream is often dispelled by the vicissitudes of the weather. Exhaling from the Atlantic surge, Wild world of waters, distant clouds ascend In vapoury confluence, deepening cloud on cloud: These vast bodies of mist and vapour, attracted by the lofty mountains of Kerry, burst over them, and the country is fre quently deluged with torrents of rain at a season when fine weather and a bright sun are usually expected to ripen the fruits of the earth. The romantic wanderer, who then wades through the long wet grass, sprinkled by every bush he passes under, and excluded from the charms of the prospect by impending clouds, thinks of the voluptuous descriptions which he has heard, and perhaps laments his own credulity. The old abbey of Irrelagh, or of Mucruss as it is now commonly called, stands on an eminence in the richest part of the domain, at a short distance from the road which conducts to the mansion-house. A few years ago it was generally lamented that the effect of these ruins in the landscape was lost, from their being so thickly enveloped by trees. The woodman has lately been employed to open them to view on the side of the church, and now perhaps rather too much is seen. Had the large Gothic east window and part of the church only been revealed, by lopping off the lower branches of some of the intervening trees, enough would have been shown to catch the eye; and the ruin, from being half concealed, would have appeared to greater advantage, and have excited more curiosity than it does at present *. As the ash-trees which grew on this side were, however, extremely old, and decayed at the top, it was probably found more advisable to remove them altogether than to leave them standing in a deformed state, deprived of the only branches. which bore foliage. But perhaps a better effect would have resulted from opening the prospect of that part of the abbey in which the monks used to reside, instead of cutting away any of the trees on the side of the church. * Mezzo aperta ancora, è mezzo ascosa, |