I903- Wright. — Fora??ii?iiferal Botilder-clay. 177 



Globlgrerlna bulloldes, d' Orb. -Very rare. 

 Orbullna unlvcrsa, d'Orb. -Very rare. 

 Dlscorbina obtusa (d'Orb.).— Rare. 

 Rotalla orbicularis, d'Orb.— Very rare. 

 Nonionina depressula (W. & J.).— Common. 

 Polystomella strlato-punctata (F. & M.).— Rare. 

 P. subnodosa (Munster) —Very rare. 



I received two packets of this clay. The first weighed 71 oz ; I found 

 in it only one solitary example of Nonionijia depressula ; the other, which 

 Mr. Smith informs me was collected about 100 yards distant from the 

 previous one, and weighed only 39 oz,, yielded 79 specimens. Much the 

 rarest form in this gathering was Polystomella subnodosa ; as a recent 

 British species it has only been found off the west coasts of Ireland and 

 Scotland. 



" Boulder clay, Leaze Burn, four miles N.E of Muirkirk, Ayrshire, 

 1,330 feet above the level of the sea, stones and boulders well striated." 

 Weight of clay, 78 i oz Troy. After washing. 23*6 oz. fine ; 202 oz. 

 coarse. Foraminifera rare. 

 Discorblna obtusa (d'Orb.). — Very rare. 

 Nonionina depressula (W. & J.). — Rare. 



I received two packets of this clay. In one of them I obtained seven 

 specimens; in the other, only one specimen. 



The occurrence of Foraminifera at such high elevations in 

 the County of Dublin and in Ayrshire is very instructive, as 

 it shows that the land, at these places as well as in Wales was 

 submerged to a great depth during the glacial period. Foram- 

 inifera have been found in the drift of Moe.l Tryfaen in Wales 

 at an elevation of 1,350 feet, at lycaze Burn, Ayrshire, at 1,330 

 feet, and at Ballyedmonduff, Co. Dublin, at [,000 feet, and 

 shell fragments were obtained in the gravels at Castlecaldwell, 

 200 feet higher, but the gravel from this locality has not yet 

 been examined for Microzoa. 



In the " Memoir of the Country around Dublin, Explanation 

 of Sheet 112," recently published by the Geological Survey, 

 the writer of the part dealing with the origin of the glacial 

 deposits has attempted to explain that the drifts as a whole, 

 including those that contain shell fragments, have been de- 

 posited by land ice and not during marine submergence — that 

 the shell-bearing claj^s and gravels have been shoved up by 

 ice from the bed of the Irish Sea to their present elevation — 

 that this took place at a time when the basin of the Irish Sea 

 and the adjoining land was buried to a great depth under ice — 

 that the fossil shells are always incomplete and generally mere 

 fragments, and that they are absent from the beds of fine sand 



