of Deny and Antrim. ^ 199 



Thus, by making ourselves acquainted with effects, we 

 shall be better qualified to investigate causes : and if those 

 effects shall appear to be beyond the powers of such natural 

 agents as we are already acquainted with, we shall be justi- 

 fied in admitting the performance of operations to which we 

 have seen nothing similar ; and also in admitting the former 

 existence of powers of far superior energy to any we have 

 ever known in action. 



Enumeration of some remarkable Inequalities in the Surface 



of our lasaltic Area, produced since the Consolidation of 



its Strata, 



That we may better understand the facts I am proceeding 

 to state, I shall assume (in the style of the mathematicians 

 puta factum) previous to demonstration, that the planes of 

 our uniform, rectilineal strata, however interrupted we may 

 now find them, were once continuous. 



Upon this supposition, the valley of the Mayola, between 

 the stratified summits of Seqfin and Slievegallon, u an ex- 

 cavation 1 700 feet deep, and three miles wide, of which the 

 whole materials have been completely carried off. 



To the northward of this excavation, between Seafn and 

 Carntogher, the continuous accumulated strata of basalt are 

 interrupted, and taken away quite down to the schistose sub- 

 stratum ; while the untouched summits of the contiguous 

 mountains, Carntogher, Seafn, and Monyneeny, are still 

 stratified basalt. 



On the eastern side of our area, immediately to the 

 southward of Kello and Connor, a similar operation has been 

 performed, attended by still more extraordinary circum* 

 stances. 



We here find a district near four miles in diameter, caltal 

 the Sandy Braes ; over this whole space the basaltic strati- 

 fication has been carried off, and the operation has reached 

 deep into a very singular substratum, a reddish breccia, by 

 some mineralogists called a porphyry, the mass friable, but 

 the component angular particles of extreme hardness. 



The hills, of which this little district is full, are every 

 one perfect segments of spheres, while the loftier basaltic 



N 4 hill* 



