I904- Pattkrson. — Changes on thefoi'cshove of Belfast Lough. 1 1 r 



&c., published in 1880. On p. 121 I find the following : — 

 " Of the great expanse of banks in Belfast Ba}^ formerly 

 all covered with the Zostera nia7dna or grass wrack, 

 those on the County Down side are rapidly changing 

 their character, becoming hard and clean sand banks 

 instead of soft ooze. A great ph5^sical change of this nature 

 cannot fail to have some effect on the inhabitants and 

 feathered frequenters of these wide flats." The change here 

 alluded to continued, graduaUj- but- very slowly becoming 

 more apparent, till the dredging out of the Victoria channel, 

 which was commenced in 1885 and finished in 1891, gave it a 

 fresh impetvis, and at th^ same lime turned it partly into a new 

 direction. 



With the exception of the making of the quite recent 

 Musgrave Channel, partly in the bed of the old channel 

 where thetraining ship " Gibraltar " used tolie, no very material 

 change — be3^ond the stripping of the Zostera grounds — is 

 discernible from the outer point of the South Twin Island down 

 to off the point of the Kinnegar ; but from there all the way 

 down the shore to Craigavad, a distance of between two 

 and three miles, the change is ver}- remarkable. 



This change consists in a complete stripping off or 

 denudation of the former surface of the bottom between high 

 and low-water marks, of course to a varying extent, but in 

 some places to as much as between two and three feet, or 

 exceptionally even more, boulders of these sizes and ridges of 

 sandstone which were formerly buried and concealed now 

 standing out to the heights mentioned. 



It is said that the land here is slowl}' sinking, and I believe 

 it is so, for I remember the old pump at Cultra Point, the 

 stump of which is now about twenty yards below, standing at 

 the top of the sloping beach, well above ordinar>^ high-water 

 mark ; and old Holywood people have told me they remembered 

 it standing in the field^ ; but even if this sinking is taking 

 place it must be very slow, and would not, in any case, be 

 sufiicient to account for the phenomena observed, as boulders 

 ridges, bottom, and all would have sunk togeihe?'^ and this is 

 apparently not the case. Down to Cultra Point, which in 



i See /. N.A\., pp. 16-1S, plate i., 1893.— Eds. 



