32 The Irish Naturalist. 



Cole's " County Dublin, Past and Present," which appeared, 

 in the first five numbers of this magazine 1 , and contains an 

 interesting discussion on glacial phenomena ; and in last 

 month's issue we have enjoyed some very recent information 

 from Professor Sollas, referring to glacial investigations which 

 he is at present engaged upon, in conjunction with Mr. R. 

 Lloyd Praeger, Hon. Sec. of the Dublin Naturalists' Field Club. 



Last summer, a communication from Mr. Percy F. Kendall, 

 F.G.S., Secretary to the Erratic Blocks Committee of the 

 British Association, was received by the Belfast Naturalists' 

 Field Club, urging them to commence systematic investiga- 

 tions into the glaciation of the north-east of Ireland, especially 

 with regard to erratics and other stones included in the drift. 

 In response to Mr. Kendall's request, a sub-committee "to 

 investigate the glacial phenomena of the district" was appoint- 

 ed in August last, and work was immediately commenced. 

 Glacial inquiry is, however, not a new departure in the Club, 

 as in its Report for 1879-80, a paper by Mr. Joseph Wright, 

 F.G.S., upon the Post-tertiary Foraminifera of the north-east 

 of Ireland contains a table showing their distribution in the 

 boulder clay of that district, and in the gravels at Balscadden 

 Bay, Ballybrack, and Ballyedmonduff, in the vicinity of Dublin. 

 The same Report also contains a paper by Mr. S. A. Stewart, 

 F.B.S.E., giving a list of the Mollusca of the north-eastern 

 boulder clay, and the Report for 1892-93 gives a list of both 

 Mollusca and Foraminifera collected during a recent investi- 

 gation of the Ballyrudder gravels near Glenarm. But the 

 inquiries now initiated deal more particularly with the stones 

 included in glacial deposits, and the measurement and record- 

 ing of the larger erratic boulders. Mr. Kendall tells me that 

 in the twenty-two years of the Erratic Blocks Committee's 

 existence no report has been received from Ireland ! Surely 

 we may hope that Mr. Kendall's reproach may be wiped away 

 during the coming year, and that Irish geologists will under- 

 take a united, systematic, and prolonged attack upon the icy 

 problems that lie awaiting the investigator and observer. 



In a pamphlet written by Professor Sollas with reference to 

 the visit of the Geologists' Association to Dublin in July last 2 , 



1 Irish Nat. 1S92. 



2 W.J. Sollas—" The Geology of Dublin and its neighbourhood," Proc. 

 Geol. Ass., 1893. 



