1898] THE ESKERS OF IRELAND 251 



Ami similar forces, I should say, were at work in the ' esker ' 

 seaj as they arc at the present day in ( lalway Bay, and must have 

 been at work on some parts of the margin of the sea in every 

 geological age. Mr Kinahau makes incidental reference to the 

 ridge from Co. Wexford to the Saltees. Within three miles of the 

 mouth of the Corrib River, on which Galway stands, there are 

 examples of what I take leave to call Chesil Bank formation in 

 progress at the present hour, some to the east and some to the west 

 of the outlet. 



Fast of the town, and separated from it by the inner bay known 

 .as Lough At alia (crossed by the railway) is the promontory on which 

 stands Renmore Military Barracks. Off this headland is Hare 

 Island, a rather remarkable fragment of the boulder-clay drift 

 which appears in cliffs just opposite and in other places around the 

 Bay. At low water this island is connected with the mainland by 

 a natural causeway, about half a mile in length, of so regular 

 -construction that it would, at first sight, appear almost as the work 

 ■of man. At high tides this causeway or bar is covered under water 

 deep enough to float a small schooner. At the land end it joins 

 other ridges more of the ' harbour-liar ' character, running to right 

 and to left along shore, and cutting off lagoons from the Bay, the 

 bars bein" above the reach of all but the highest tides. "Who 

 made this road V I asked an old man residing in the hamlet hard 

 by. "The tide," he answered; "the bank has grown out from 

 the island, and is still growing." The island divides the flow-tide, 

 and the shingle and sand are ridged up very much as Kinahan's 

 theory lays down. More curious still is the great loop which the 

 ridge makes at the island, forming a deep pond or loch of over an 

 acre in extent, the surface of the enclosed water being, when I saw 

 it, at ebb-tide on 24th May 1898, fully ten feet above the level of 

 the surrounding waters. Near the famous Claddagh, a great bank 

 of shingle has cut off many acres inshore, flooded only at high 

 tides through a gap in the 'bar.' At the western end of this ridge 

 there is also a fragment of boulder-clay. Again, about a mile to 

 the wesl of the beautiful sen-side suburb, Salthill, is a conspicuous 

 promontory of the boulder-clay known as Mount Gentian (now the 

 Golf Links). Oil' this headland is another island fragment of the 

 (day-drift : and this too has been joined to the shore by a long 

 narrow causeway of shingle which stands clear of the highest tides, 

 and may be traced for a mile in the direction of Salthill promenade, 

 in thi' form of a ' harbour -bar,' cutting off a considerable space of 

 old bench now converted into grazing -round.. 



The two marine causeways here described present some striking 

 resemblance to many of the inland ridges 1 have seen. There is 

 resemblance in contour, of slope, of proportion, of bedding; and if 



