551.33(41.5) 172 
II 
The Eskers of Ireland 
F the more recent geological phenomena none are more curious, 
and none have given rise to more speculation, not to say con- 
troversy, than the ridge-like accumulations, principally of sand or 
gravel, found throughout the midland district of Ireland. 
Considering that geologists have very commonly associated these 
ridges—eskers as they are called in Ireland—with the products of 
glaciation, it appears to me not a little remarkable that they are 
confined to a comparatively narrow zone running through the 
flattest part of the island from Galway Bay to Dublin Bay. The 
remark would apply with almost equal force to the corresponding 
formations of Scotland and the Scandinavian peninsula. The kames 
are nearly confined to the valleys of the Clyde and Forth, as the 
asar of Sweden have their most striking development in the Lake 
Malar district. True, there are mounds of gravel in some of the 
northern counties of Ireland, but they are not to be confounded 
with the typical eskers of Galway, King’s County, North Tipperary, 
Queen’s County, Kildare, and Dublin; and in Scotland the term 
kame is applied to ridges and mounds “of marine, lacustrine, 
fluviatile, and meteoric (wind-driven) drifts.” 
“The centre of Ireland is chiefly a great plain of Carboniferous 
Limestone, partly surrounded by several groups of lofty hills com- 
posed of the oldest rocks, which rise from beneath the limestone. 
The hills to the south of this plain have every height up to 3000 
feet above the sea. Other hills, rising to heights of 800 or 1000 
feet, are composed of Coal-measures lying on the limestone; these 
are surrounded by valleys which are branches of the great plain. 
The general level of the limestone plain is from 100 to 300 feet 
above the sea, only a few isolated hills of limestone in the interior 
of the country rising to as much as 500 or 600 feet.” 
From this description by Jukes, it is clear that, if the surface 
of the country were depressed 300 feet from its present level, the 
waters of Galway Bay would meet those of Dublin Bay, forming a 
broad channel interrupted only by a few islands and occasional shallows. 
That such was the case during at least a portion of the period of the 
deposition of the limestone-gravel is generally maintained by Ivish 
geologists ; and the term ‘esker sea’ (Kinahan) has been used to 
denote the inland waters when the land depression was at or near 
