August, 1922, The Irish Naturalist^ 85 



THE ALLEGED ERUPTION OF KNOCKLAYD. 



BY PROFESSOR GRENVILLE A. J. COLE, D.SC, F.R.S. 



In Vol. xii. of the Irish Naturalist, p. 140 (1903), Dr. R. 

 Lloyd Praeger quoted an account of a " Volcano at 

 Knocklade," from the Morning Post or Dublin Courier, for 

 June 12, 1788. An eruption is said to have broken out 

 on May 30, and is described with much convincing detail, 

 even to the explosion of an egg that was placed in the hot 

 ashes. McLeod of Coll in the Hebrides and Dr. Hamilton 

 of Portrush are said to have been among the visitors. The 

 whole thing may have been a skit on the Neptunist and 

 Vulcanist controversies of the time. The Rev. Wm. 

 Hamilton of Condevadock had been active on the side of 

 the Vulcanists since 1784. 



There is a reference to bogslides in the letter in the 

 Morning Post, and it is possible that a slide on Knocklayd, 

 which has a ring of peat-covered land around its crest, may 

 have inspired some ingenious wit. Dr. Praeger informs me 

 that the letter is dated from Ballycastle, and is signed 

 " Pliny, the Younger." 



The romantic story has been revived by an unsigned 

 article, under the heading " Personal and incidental," in the 

 Northern Whig for May 15, 1922, to which Mr. Nevin H. 

 Foster of Hillsborough has called the attention of naturalists 

 in Dublin. Mr. Foster has made enquiries into the history 

 of the matter in Belfast, and very kindly allows me to put 

 forward his results. 



The writer in the Northern Whig saj^s that he has 

 " disinterred a letter " from Ballycastle to a gentleman in 

 Dublin, dated May 31, 1788. One would conclude that 

 he had become possessed of the original manuscript ; but 

 Dr. Praeger informs me that this letter appears in Faulkner's 

 Dublin Journal for May 31, 1788, so that, if it really 

 emanated from Ballycastle, it must have been " dated " a 

 week or so earlier. It begins, " Yesterday we had the most 

 violent storm of thunder and lightning," and then says 

 that in the evening local fears were increased " by a most 



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