170 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



At Kilroot, ou the north shore of Belfast Lough, 

 about two miles north-east of Carrickfergus, there 

 is a raised beach, with worked flints overlying 

 marls and clays, containing marine shells of exist- 

 ing species, with drift-wood, hazel nuts, leaves, &c. 

 The post-tertiary deposits of Belfast are remark- 

 ably rich in marine shells ; lists of these have been 

 published by Messrs. James Bryce and George C. 

 Hyndman, from observations made during the con- 

 struction of reservoirs for supplying the town with 

 water, three-quarters of a mile from the town and 

 close to the Antrim road ; also by Dr. McGee, from 

 others obtained from the excavation made in 1830 

 for the basin, now called the Prince's Dock. The 

 Eev. Dr. Grainger has since given more extended 

 and complete lists of these shells in subsequent 

 papers read at the Geological Society of Dublin ; 

 British Association (Belfast Meeting) ; University 

 Zoological and Botanical Association ; and the 

 Natural History Society of Belfast. 



On the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway 

 at Ballypalady (Bally clare and Dough station), 

 about seven miles from Carrickfergus Junction, and 

 a little more than half an hour's ride by rail from 

 Belfast, there is a cutting between Ballyclare and 

 Templepatrick stations, where a lignite bed may be 

 observed associated with pisolitic iron ore, and 

 lithomarge interstratified with the basalt which 

 overlies the chalk. This iron ore has been worked 

 in the immediate neighbourhood, and at various 

 places still farther north, becoming a considerable 

 source of emolument to proprietors. 



Some of the beds connected with this iron ore, 

 especially at the locality above-mentioned, contain a 

 great abundance of vegetable remains, consisting of 

 the fruit, leaves, and stems of plants. Some of 

 these have been described by Mr. W. Hellier Bailey, 

 of the^Geological Survey of Ireland, in the Journal 

 Geol. Soc. of London, vol. xxv. (1869). They 

 were stated to be for the most part leaves of dico- 

 tyledonous trees, amongst which some were referred 

 to the beech, oak, and buckthorn, with several 

 conifers, such as pinns, cypress, and a sequoia, the 

 whole assemblage indicating a Miocene age as that 

 at which the basalt was poured out over so large an 

 extent of country as it is in the north of Ireland, 

 being estimated at about 1,200 square miles. 



On the shore, a little north of the village of Holy- 

 wood, a station on the Belfast, Holywood, and 

 Bangor Railway, soutli side of Belfast Lough, at 

 Cultra, are rocks belonging to the Upper Sandstone 

 of the New Red Eormation, or " Bunter : " these 

 rocks are traversed by three trap dykes of a grey 

 or dark green crystalline basalt. A fault at tliis 

 place brings in the Lower Carboniferous Limestone 

 shales, full of characteristic shells, especially 

 Modiola Macadami, and small entomostracan Crus- 

 tacea, Cythere, Leper ditia, &c. Several dykes of a 

 similar character occur in these shales, which ex- 



tend for about a mile along the shore. A little 

 farther north a series of beds may be seen below 

 higli-water mark, believed to be of Permian age ; 

 they consist of yellow and buff-coloured magnesian 

 limestone, below which are red marls and thin- 

 bedded. fossiliferous limestones. The beds appear 

 to lie unconformably upon the limestone shales, 

 terminating eastward by a basaltic dyke, which 

 coincides with a line of fault. 



Scrabo Hill, near Newtown Ards, county Down, 

 about eight miles east of Belfast, is the highest 

 point (540 feet) of the irregularly-shaped basaltic 

 plateau, which, as well as that of Duudonald, 

 General Portlock considered to be outliers of the 

 large basaltic sheets of the county Antrim. 



This prominent hill is of special geological 

 interest. The quarries of Upper New Red Sand- 

 stone, " Bunter," supply a good building stone, 

 and exhibit ;finc sections, showing not only the 

 trap rocks, which mostly consist of a crjrstalline 

 Dolerite, weathering into large spheroidal masses, 

 overlying the Triassic Sandstones, and forming the 

 summit of the hill, but spreading in horizontal 

 sheets through the mass of the sandstone, which 

 is again traversed by vertical dykes of later date, 

 a phenomenon which is well exhibited in the south 

 quarry. (See Explanation to Sheet 37, &c., " Geol. 

 Survey of Ireland," p. 14, fig. 1.) 



At Castle Espie, on the south shore of Strangford 

 Lough, near Comber, about ten miles south-east of 

 Belfast, the Lower Carboniferous Limestone and 

 underlying shales are well shown in a quarry 

 belonging to J. Murland, Esq. The limestone is 

 red or salmon-colour, and is very fossiliferous ; the 

 fossils, principally Brachiopod and Cephalopod 

 shells, are well preserved, and some of them of very 

 large size, especially Produdus giganteus and 

 Actinoceras giganteum, the latter being called by 

 the quarrymen "Pillars." 



The underlying shales, which are also red, contain 

 an abundance of characteristic Lower Limestone 

 fossils. 



Lower Silurian strata may be observed all round 

 the coast north of the Lower Limestone shale of 

 Holywood and Cultra to Bangor, at the entrance 

 of Belfast Lough, with occasional beds of black 

 slates containing graptolites ; continuing still 

 further round the coast to Donaghadee, south of 

 the Lough (Belfast and County Down Railway), 

 and especially at a place called Coal-pit Bay (from 

 a mistaken notion that these beds were coal shales), 

 where they are full of graptolites, of several 

 species, in beautiful preservation, including Ras- 

 tritcs peregrinus, GrajitoUihus SedgwicJci, G. tenuis, 

 and G. Becki, Diplograpms pristis, &c. 



" Tlie effect of subaerial action is to render the 

 surface of the earth more rugged, by forming valleys 

 and hWh "SkertcMey's Geology. 



