igo2. The British Association in Belfast, 307 



new Guide, and even such important local survivals as the slide-cars and 

 block-wheel cars (the exhibition of which formed so interesting- a feature of 

 the recent meeting') are passed over. When we add that no information is 

 given relative to agriculture (which also was treated of in the old Guide) 

 or to the economic condition of the district, we have pilloried most of 

 the faults of omission of this portion of the book. 



The ensuing 186 pages are devoted to the natural history of Down and 

 Antrim — geology, botany, and zoology. The whole of the geological 

 article — 50 pages — is the work of J. St. J. Phillips ; at least, so it appears 

 from the body of the book, though in the preface the assistance of H. J. 

 Seymour is acknowledged. Mr. Phillips gives us an excellent account of 

 the physical features, stratigraphical g-eology, and igneous rocks of the 

 area. We think that the article might have been strengthened, and would 

 have gained in interest, had the work been divided among those who have 

 made a special study of different branches of local geology, as was wisely 

 done in zoology and botany. Mineralogy is hardly referred to throughout 

 the account, and further information relative to ores, mines, and mining 

 would hav^e been of interest. The post-Tertiary deposits, which in the 

 Belfast district possess such peculiar interest, are very hurriedly passed 

 over. If there is any direction in which the Belfast Field Club has distin- 

 guished itself, it is in investigations carried out on these beds and their 

 fauna ; and the work of Stewart and Wright in particular might have been 

 expected to receive in this publication fuller recognition. Mr. Wright has 

 however, at the end of his account of Foraminifera in the Zoological sec- 

 tion, given some account of the occurrence of these Microzoa in local rocks 

 of various geological periods. In places the writing is loose, as when the 

 author says (p. 66), " Popular tradition places it [the origin of Lough 

 Neagh] within the human period, and it may not be improbable that the 

 tradition is altogether without foundation " — meaning apparently the oppo- 

 site. We cannot, like Mr. Phillips, follow Sir A. Geikie in this suggestion, 

 the inference from which is that Lough Neagh was created at the end of the 

 first century, A.D. ; if we place any reliance on this legend, we cannot well 

 refuse credence to numerous other stories which deal with the formation of 

 lakes throughout Ireland. Possibly a serious inundation occurred about 

 the period mentioned. The record of the recent unprecedented floods in 

 Belfast, had they taken place a couple of thousand years ago, might well 

 have come down to us as a legend relating the origin of Belfast Lough. 



Owing to the recency of the publication of the revised geological map of 

 County Down, the term Ordovician remains in one or two places (pp. 60 

 and 70) where Silurian or Upper Silurian would now be more appropriate. 



On p. 85 reference might be made to the possible Albian (or Selbornian) 

 age of some of the lower Glauconitic Sands, a point to which Dr. Hume has 

 called attention. On p. 99 the igneous rock of Cushendall is described as 

 a quartz-felsite, a term usually reserved for orthoclastic rocks. It might 

 be better styled a quartz-porphyrite, or even a quartz-andesite. On 

 p. 105 the spellings " tachylite" and *' olivene" appear. But these are trifling- 

 matters when the extent of the article, and the references to original memoirs 

 entailed in its preparation, are considered by the critical reader. 



