214 The Irish Naturalist, September, 



THE GOBBINS CLIFFS AND CAVES, CO. ANTRIM. 



BY R. J. WELCH. 

 PI.ATK 4. 



Naturalists have often deplored the fact that these fine 

 mural precipices, some miles long, facing the open channel 

 on the east coast of Islandmagee, were quite inaccessible from 

 below, rising as they do in many places sheer out of deep 

 water. Sea gullies cut across the narrow ledges into the caves 

 at other parts, and some of these could not be passed even in 

 calm weather. All this is now changed thanks to the enter- 

 prise of the Northern Counties Railway Companj^, whose 

 engineer, Mr. Wise, has been for months past cutting a path 

 out of both the solid and more friable amygdaloidal basalts 

 along the base of the cliffs, right in the cliff face at some places 

 and through projecting spurs at others. He is making a 

 special effort to have all the ravines on the second section of 

 the path bridged before the British Association meeting in 

 Belfast. Many of the steel girder bridges were lifted with much 

 difficulty from rafts towed from Whitehead, and the 70-foot 

 oval hollow lattice girder, through which the path is carried over 

 the deep ravine at the Man-o'-War sea stack, was lately towed 

 without mishap to the stack, and successfully hoisted up the 

 cliff face into position. The stack is a fine example of the 

 results of marine erosion, the shape determined by the rough, 

 vertical jointing of the harder lava flows, and a dyke which has 

 weathered out rapidly parallel to the main cliff face. There 

 are many other examples of a different nature now easily 

 examined, close to or on the path itself. Some soft vesicular 

 basalts have hone3xonibed, and weathered all colours, in the 

 most fantastic way, partly from marine, partly through atmos- 

 pheric agencies. During the progress of the work a cave was 

 re-discovered which has been hidden by a great fall of rock for 

 over 40 years. This was blasted away, and between 400 and 500 

 tons of cliff debris and rolled sea boulders partly filling the cave 

 removed. Under this were many bones of mammals (includ- 

 ing Red Deer horns), birds, and fishes, especially at the sides 

 of the cave, regularly cemented to the boulders by calcareous 

 deposits brought down by percolating waters. These latter have 



