1904. :^57 



FORAMINIFERA IN GI.ACIAL SANDS. 



BY GEO. C. GOUGH, A.R.CSC (lOND.), F.G.S. 



Adjoining the Malone golf-links, Belfast, is a considerable 

 section of reddish-brown sands capped by boulder-clay. The 

 sands are at present being rapidly carted away both for use in 

 mould-making for castings, and for filling-in and levelling a 

 new road which is being made close by. They are known as 

 the " Malone Sands," and are found exposed in various parts 

 of Belfast, being of glacial age, and containing fragments of 

 basalt, chalk, and coal. Mr. lyamplugh^ believes that " they 

 were laid down in an ice-dammed lake during one of the later 

 stages of the Glacial Period." 



At the spot under discussion the sands are about 14 or 15 

 feet in thickness, but vary greatly, sinking in one place to 

 about 6 feet, where a miniature valley has been scooped out 

 and filled with boulder-clay, this being 12 feet thick at this 

 spot, instead of about 6 feet as it is a short distance away. 



In the sands are thin irregular streaks both of clay and of a 

 lighter-coloured sand, and it is in this latter that the Foramini- 

 fera are found. Although I have examined samples of the 

 sand from other parts of Belfast, and even samples taken from 

 quite close to the places where the Foraminifera were found, 

 yet I have not been able to detect them elsewhere ; and the 

 only record of organic remains in these sands appears to be 

 that of Mr. Praeger in his " Estnarine Clays of Alexandra 

 Dock, Belfast,'- wherein he states that Mr. J. Wright found 

 Polystomellastriato-p2inctaia, Rotalia bcccarii and two Ostracods 

 in a sample of the red glacial sands of that Dock. 



About 12 pounds of the lighter-coloured sands were taken, 

 floated, and the floatings examined, with the result that nine- 

 teen species of Foraminilera were found, a list of which is ap- 

 pended. They are all forms typical of a glacial deposit, and 

 no species have been found but what have been discovered by 



1 Geol. Surv. Mem. : — Geology of Belfast, 1904. 



= Proc. Belfast Nat. Field Club, A])peudix II., vol. ii , 1SS6. 



