CHAP. XIV. MAMMALIA SCARCE IN IRISH DRIFT. 271 



to floating ice, during submergence. The signs of glacial 

 action have been traced by Professor Jukes to elevations of 

 2500 feet iu the Killarney district, and to gi-eat heights 

 in other mountainous regions; but marine shells have rarel}^ 

 been met with higher than 600 feet above the sea, and that 

 chiefly in gravel, clay, and sand in Wicklow and Wexford. 

 They are so rare in the drift east of the Wicklow mountains, 

 that an exception to the rule, lately observed at Ballymore 

 Eustace, by Professor Jukes, is considered as a fact of no 

 small geological interest. The wide extent of drift of the 

 same character, spread over large areas in Ireland, shows 

 that the whole island was, in some part of the glacial period, 

 an archipelago, as represented in the maps, figs. 39, 40, 

 pp. 276 and 278. 



Speaking of the Wexford drift, the late Professor E. Forbes 

 states that Sir H. James found in it, together with many of 

 the usual glacial shells, several species which are characteristic 

 of the crag ; among others the reversed variety of Fusus 

 antiquus, called F. contrarius, and the extinct species Nucula 

 Cobboldice, and Turritella incrassata.'^ Perhaps a portion of 

 this drift of the south of Ireland may belong to the close of 

 the newer pliocene period, and may be of a somewhat older 

 date than the shells of the Clyde, alluded to at p. 243. They 

 may also correspond still more nearly in age with the fauna 

 of the uppermost strata of the Norwich Crag, occurring at 

 Chillesford, and alluded to p. 211. 



The scarcity of mammalian remains in the Irish drift 

 favors the theory of its marine origin. In the superficial 

 deposits of the whole island, I have only met with three 

 recorded examples of the mammoth, one in the south near 

 Dungarvan, where the bones of Flephas primigenius, two 

 species of bear {Ursus Airtos and Ursus spelceusf), the 



* Forbes's Memoirs of Survey, &c., vol. i. p. 377. 



