1909 Irish Societies. * 227 



Valvata cristata, and rhysafontinalis, the fountain shell, were noted. These 

 same water-lily leaves were covered on the under side with various 

 species of small leeches and planarian worms, which were also in abund- 

 ance under stones by the river side, with masses of fresh-water sponges, 

 which seem very common at Inch Abbey shores. The muddy bottom 

 yielded Spharium lacustre, and a number of Pisidia not yet determined. 

 Helix horiensis was found to be still fairl}' plentiful at its Downpatrick 

 habitat. The most interesting ornithological feature proA-ed to be the 

 observation of a pair of Sandwich Terns, whose distinctive call-notes at 

 once directed attention to them as they flew up the river at a short dis- 

 tanceoverhead. Five species of Woodlice were taken, the most interest 

 ing being the Pill Woodlouse, Armadillintn vulgare. This species is 

 common in the South of Ireland, but remained unrecorded from Ulster 

 until quite recently, when it was discovered at Portaferry and at Killough. 

 It was very numerous under stones on the sloping ground between Inch 

 Abbey and the Ouoile. 



June 19.— Geoi.ogicai, Section.— Excursion to Scawt Hii^i,— 

 This volcanic neck, about six miles north of Larne, was visited to 

 study the metamorphism of the adjacent chalk. A few years ago one 

 of the members came unexpectedly on a basic dyke traversing the 

 "neck " dolerite, and cutting across a narrow band of chalk: the latter 

 near its junction with the dyke weathered so dark, that it was difficult 

 to tell it from the dyke itself. Microscopic sections were prepared, and 

 submitted to Professor Gough, who found the dyke to be a granitoid 

 holocrystalline rock, which may be classed as a diabase without olivine, 

 and the adjacent rock proved to be the chalk completely altered into a 

 calc-silicate horustone (^Geol. Mag., April, 1907). The members of the 

 Geological Section, on the 19th ult., observed the chalk in contact with 

 the " neck " dolerite, even at a distance from the dyke, to be similarly- 

 altered. No other case, we believe, has been recorded of the conversion 

 of ordinary white chalk, by contact with an igneous magma, into a 

 calc-silicate liornstone. 



August 21.— Geoi,ogicai. Section.— Excursion to Bai^IvYmena. — 

 At Drumfane, two miles N.E. of Ballymena, fine sections of sands and 

 gravels of the esker type, exposed in Mr. Clyde's sand pits were first 

 examined ; the drive Vv'as then continued to Cloughwater, where a 

 protrusion of beautifully banded and fluidal rhyolite occurs. It appears 

 as a white boss in the midst of a bog. From Cloughwater a return was 

 made to Broughshane, where a magnificent section of the esker deposits 

 on the north side of the Ballygarvey road was visited. The stratification 

 of the material, with excellent examples of current-bedding was ver}- 

 clearly defined. From an examination of 100 boulders taken at random 

 both here and at Drumfane, it was evident that the deposits were mainh 

 derived from rocks in the district. At Broughshane rhyolite seemed to 

 be absent, whereas at the Drumfane pits it was common. Many beauti- 

 ful hand specimens were collected by the geologists at Cloughwater, and 

 at all the places visited a large number of geological photographic 

 records were made. 



