1 46 The Irish Nattualist. July, 



•boulder of the Ailsa Craig riebeckite-granopliyre, which 

 deserves to be preserved in the Belfast Museum. We have 

 also to thank Mr. Seymour for the first record of the Quill- 

 wort {Isodcs) as an Irish fossil. Its macrospores were 

 obtained in a peaty layer, under five feet of sand, near Anna- 

 dale. 



As regards the Post-glacial series, our knowledge of these 

 beds having been summarized, in recent papers by the present 

 writer, this source has been largely availed of, and compara- 

 tively little new material is put forward. We note that Mr. 

 M 'Henry describes the upper portion of the raised beach at 

 Ballyholme as a storm-beach. This explanation provides a con- 

 venient escape from the difficulty that the raised beach reaches 

 here a considerably greater elevation than elsewhere in the 

 area survej^ed. But when these beds stood up as a vertical 

 scarp all along the sea-margin, before the present sea-wall 

 and slope were formed, the even bedding of the upper laj^ers, 

 as seen in the fine sections then exposed, did not suggest a 

 storm-beach, though blown sand was clearly present in 

 places. It may be pointed out that the I^arne raised beach 

 reaches a still greater elevation, and there the conditions are 

 against a storm-beach, and blown sand is altogether absent. 

 The interesting layer of peat underlying the raised beach at 

 Ballyholme is referred to, but no mention is made of the 

 similar bed at low water in Bangor Bay, nor of that which 

 crops out at half-tide at the mouth of the Croft Burn, north of 

 Holywood. 



The chapter on Economics, besides the usual references to 

 mines, water supply, building stones, &c., contains an account 

 of the soils of the I4sburn district by Mr. Kilroe, who has sub- 

 mitted some representative samples to mechanical analysis. 



Three appendices bring the Memoir to a conclusion. The 

 first of these consists of some useful notes on the volcanic 

 rocks of the district by Mr. Seymour. In the second are 

 given the results of a large number of well-borings about 

 Belfast. This information, largely personally collected by 

 the officers of the Survey, is very interesting, as throwing 

 light on the structure and history of the Belfast basin. But 

 while, in a broad way, the sections recorded can be compared, 

 a more exact attempt to reconstruct the old surfaces fails 



