]56 •* THE BASALTIC COUNTRY IN IRELAND. 



however are far less considerable in thickness than the pre* 

 ceding, neither. of them exceeding five feet. 



Such depressions occur at the collieries near Ballycaxtle, 

 and generally on one side of a whyn dike. We have also at 

 Seaport, two miles west from the GtanCs Causeicay, a dike, 

 oblique and undulating, with a depression of the strata of 

 about four feet on one side; but on Bengore promontory 

 our dikes are unaccompanied by depressions of the strata, 

 and where we have depressions, we do not find a trace of a 

 dyke. 

 4 The portions of this extensive facade, which I have se- 



lected for explanatory views, are Portmoon, in or near which 

 most of the strata emerge, and Pleskin, where the strata 

 culminate, each of these views too exhibits one of our de- 

 pressions, but in that of Pleskin, the first apparent depres- 

 sion is purely an optical effect arising from the position of 

 my friend Major O'Neal, of the 56th, who took his view 

 from the water. 



Enumeration of the sixteen Strata that compose the Promon- 

 tory of Bengore , taken in their regular Order, and count" 

 ingfrom above* 



Enumeration The country immediately to the southward of Bengore is 

 pf the strata. |jk e ^ e promontory itself a stratified mass, accumulated 

 to the summits of Craigh Park and Croaghmore, the first 

 fiye hundred and the second seven hundred feet high; but 

 with these strata I have nothing to do, limiting myself to 

 those alone of which the promontory is formed, and which 

 are exhibited in its facades. 



The uppermost of these commences near half a mile to 

 the eastward of the angle, where the coast, deflecting from 

 its due east and west course, turns to the north-west, and 

 begins to form the promontory. 



So far the course of this stratum is to appearance perfectly 

 horizontal, for the strata all ascending to the north, the in- 

 tersection of their planes with the plane of the sea must run 

 east and west, that is, in the present case it coincides with 

 the direction of the coast. 



But when the coast changes its direction, this coincidence 

 ceases, and the facade (that is the vertical section of the 



coast) 



