1902. The British Association ifi Belfast. 275 



features of the district, such as the " Dry Gaps," were described in some 

 detail, and it was also mentioned that the general characteristics of the 

 soil produced by the various drifts were indicated in an index printed at 

 the margin of the map. Finally the very valuable help and advice given 

 by Colonel Haynes, Director of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, under 

 whose direction the map was produced in colour-printing at the Phoenix 

 Park Office, were gratefully acknowledged. 



INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE GLACIAL DRIFTS 

 OF THE NORTH-EAST OF IRELAND, 



CONDUCTED BY THE) NATURAI^ISTS' FIEI«D CI,UB. 

 BY MADAME CHRISTEN. 



The schedules exhibited have been prepared as the most important 

 results of several years' work carried on by many members of the Belfast 

 Naturalists' Field Club, and include stray records from localities not fully 

 examined, which have nevertheless furnished data sufficiently important 

 to be worth recording. They will elucidate the short account of local 

 glacial geology which appears in the Handbook prepared for the visit 

 of the British Association. Further details will be subsequently pub- 

 lished in the Club's annual Proceedings. ERRATICS — The prevalence of 

 Ailsa Craig eurite is remarkable. It occurs at twenty-six of the scheduled 

 localities — as pebbles on the sands at Whitepark Bay, Portrush, and 

 Portstewart, on the shores of Belfast Lough, and in the dredgings off 

 Rathlin Island at a depth of fort5'-five fathoms. Scottish rocks have 

 been found in several deposits, and others whose parent locality may be 

 either Scotland or Ireland. Basalts and other rocks, too widely dis- 

 tributed as rocks in the district to be of value in indicating lines of ice- 

 flow, have been omitted from the schedules for the sake of conciseness; 

 nor has it been possible in these limits to include the compass direction 

 of parent rocks, which will be more easily understood by reference to 

 the accompany map, where the distribution of a few easily-recognised 

 erratics has been indicated. The term "loose stony drift" is here applied 

 to localities where the contents of Boulder daj' cliffs have been scattered 

 on the shore by the waves of the sea, as well as to loose drift which is 

 dispersed over headlands and mountains. No. 27 (Carrowreagh quarry 

 offers a solitary example of a peculiar pebbly deposit of angular frag- 

 ments. Shells are very rarely found in the Drift of this District, but 

 microzoa, especially Foraminifera, are widely distributed. Their occur* 

 rence in such elevated deposits as No. 4 (Divis Mountain) and No. 7 

 (M'Art's Fort, Cave Hill), and their absence from such a deposit as No. 

 32 (Killough) at sea level, is noteworthy. The Boulder clays at No. 4 

 and No. 7 are not a typical deposit, being scanty beds of hard clay filled 

 with angular fragments of chalk, flint, and basalt only. The invasion 

 of the north-east of Ireland by an ice-flow from Scotland, the ensuing 

 conflict between Irish and Scottish ice, and the ultimate lines of distri- 

 bution over Ireland offer a fascinating problem barely touched upon in 



