506 The Mineralogical Besources of Ireland. [Oct., 



will be ultimately found like them to extend far beneath the 

 Triassic strata, and to become a source of industry and wealth to 

 the country around. 



7. Bcdlyccistle, Co. Antrim. — This isolated coal-tract extends 

 along the southern shore of Bally castle Bay to Fair Head, and 

 southward to Murloch Bay. It is of small extent, the strata re- 

 posing on a floor of crystalline schists, and being surmounted by a 

 sheet of columnar basalt, which is visible along the fine cliff of 

 Murloch Bay. There are (or rather were) several good seams 

 of coal, which appear to have been worked from very early times, 

 the old passages and chambers having been unexpectedly discovered 

 by the miners in the year 1770. The coal is now, however, nearly 

 exhausted, but there still remain at least two seams of " black- 

 band " ironstone, which are now being worked, and exported to the 

 smelting furnaces belonging to the firm of Messrs. Merry and 

 Cunninghame, in Ayrshire. 



The above concludes our review, necessarily brief, of the coal- 

 fields of Ireland. It wiU be apparent that, in a national point of 

 view, the extent of their resources is altogether unimportant. 

 Perhaps the largest proportion of the valuable seams of coal have 

 already been worked out, and with the exception of the district of 

 Dungannon, it is clear that even the local demands of the country 

 must be supplied from British sources of supply. In the absence 

 of coal, peat is the kind of fuel upon which the population of the 

 country mainly depends; fortunately the supply of this is almost 

 unlimited, and is to some extent being constantly restored by new 

 growths as the process of extraction proceeds. 



In 1868 there were about thirty-four coUieries, often of small 

 size, in work, producing 126,950 tons of coal, as appears from the 

 " Mineral Statistics " for that year. 



That iron was formerly smelted from native ores to a considerable 

 extent there is abundant evidence, both from documents and the 

 remains of old workings in many parts of the country. Diu-ing 

 the last century much of the timber which once clothed the sur- 

 face of the country, and of which the relics are to be found in every 

 bog and morass, was felled for the supply of the iron-furnaces, some 

 of which survived into the present century. The superior resources 

 of the Welsh, English, and Scotch iron-fields efiectually terminated 

 smelting operations in the sister-isle ; nor are they likely to be 

 resumed. 



The chief source of this metal was the cky-ironstone of the 

 Coal-measures ; but there was a large quantity obtained from bog- 

 iron-ore and haematite. A new som'ce has lately been opened up in 

 the province of Ulster. A band of ochreous ore underlying the 

 basalt of county Antrim is now worked along the northern shores 

 of Belfast Lough, and is exported to Scotland. 



