DUBLIN NATURAL BI8T0RT BOCIETr. 187 



those fragile ereatores, and tearing them unhurt. A broken shell is not to be 

 found ; their habitation appears to bid defiance to injury, though placed in such 

 an apparently perilous position ; yet Wisdom, perfect in all her ways, adapts the 

 means to the end. Must it not be evident that a change, both in tide and cur- 

 rent, has taken place; and, moreover, must not the conviction that a great sub- 

 sidence of the bog had taken place, force itself irresistibly on the mind I These 

 facts, thus laid before us, would it be out of place to speculate on the changes 

 which would occur if, at a future epoch of time, another disturbance of the crust 

 of this portion of the earth should take place, and elevation be substituted for 

 depression, what a complexity of geological phenomena vvill be presented to the 

 observer. The beach, with its disk-like components, occupying an elevated po- 

 sition, and placed immediately next the bog— this, eeneralfy hostile to the 

 existence even of fcesh-water shells bearing molluscs, will be here found not only 

 inhabited, but densely crowded by marine animals, generally seeking in lime or 

 sandstone, or thick adhesive cluy, a place of safety in holes drilled in those sub- 

 stances by a wondrous mechanism, but here placed in the soft peat, carefully 

 sheathed with a coating of marine sand. But the last wonder remains — that 

 cosmopolite of the ocean, the ship-worm (Teredo navalis), the insidious de- 

 stroyer of our navy, the mariner's dread, will be found quietly located in the 

 root of the fir, a noble member of our primseval forests, now laid waste by the 

 unsparing hand of time. What a study for the future geologist ! and, applying 

 the observation to ourselves, how cautious it should make inquirers of the pre- 

 sent day, when investigating an equally difficult subject, not to doubt but that 

 he will solve the problem by patiently observing the alternations which have 

 taken place on the surface of the earth, and of which I have just pointed out a 

 remarkable instance. 



Mr. Bergin was certainly of opinion that the piece of timber exhibited was 

 not drift-wood. It had the appearance of having for a considerable time been 

 embedded in the bog, and might have been dislodged and thrown up by the same 

 force that the large mass of turf had, as mentioned by Dr. Farran. 



APRIL 15, 1851. 



A CONTINnATION OF OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHOLADIA AND LITHOOOMI OF THS 

 COAST OF CLONEA, NEAR DUNGARVAN, COUNTY OF WATEBFORD. BT CHARLB8 

 FARRAN, M.D. 



I find that it will be necessary to revert to the paper I had last the honour of 

 presenting to the Dublin Natural History Society, on the Pholadia found on the 

 coast in the immediate vicinity of Clonea, county of Waterford, where I at pre- 

 sent reside, inasmuch as I propose that the paper I am now about to read shall be 

 a continuation of it ; and indeed the subject is so intimately connected in both, 

 that it would be impossible to separate them. In my first paper I gave a general 

 outline of the contour of the coast which presented itself for examination, to the 

 naturalist apparently the most forbidding, but which proved on a more intimate 

 acquaintance to atford a wide field of interest, rarely to be excelled. The Mem- 

 bers may hold in recollection that I described a submerged bog, which, at low 

 tide, is laid bare, and thus its treasures are exhibited to those anxious to dive 

 into the mysteries of the deep; but this privilege is seldom afforded ; and even 

 in the most favourable season the time is so very short that the naturalist must 

 be quick, otherwise he will lose his advantage. It was in one of those critical 

 moments 1 had the good fortune to discover that rare shell. Teredo Norvagica 

 (ship-worm), embedded in the root of a fir-tree (Finns sylvestris) in situ, sur- 

 rounded by a bog on which it grew, and in which myriads of Pholns crispata and 

 Candida, with Pullastra perforans, were crowded together. A short descriptioo 

 of the ship- worm may possess some interest, particularly as we have the diffe« 



