134 EEPOBT — 1888. 



near the top a large mass of felsite, one face measuring 2 feet or more, is 

 in si7!6, pressing down and contorting the water-sorted gravel seams, these 

 are doubtless not in their original place. The granite has probably come 

 from the Carnsore horizon. Large transported rocks are, however, not 

 common in these sands. From the shore at Artraraon, on the eastern 

 bank of the Slaney, all the way up the ascent to Castlebridge, the road 

 exhibits this sand, which in a pit near Pulregan is beautifully exposed, 

 passing up into comminuted shell gravel. 



The section at Little Clonard is a veiy instructive one, and is the 

 deposit referred to by earlier writers as being on the Forth Mountain. 

 More accurately it is upon the land face of the Wexford ridge, opposite tn 

 the mountain. Down the slope of this ridge it extends for a distance of 

 150 yards, with a vertical thickness of about 20 to 2^ feet. At the base 

 of the section is a sheet of concreted or cemented gravelly sand a few 

 inches thick. Upon this reposes a thick mass of sand with many pebble 

 seams containing much small limestone, the fossils being most plentiful 

 in these seams. Over this is a drift of stones very local in position, in 

 some places absent, in others 3 feet thick. The upper beds having been 

 much turned over during the 100 years the section has been open and the 

 sand removed, no accurate idea can be conveyed as to the original con- 

 dition of this portion of the pit ; but in a continuation of the sheet of 

 gravel a few perches away a pit has been opened within the last three 

 years that may supply the deficiency. Here, below the surface soil, is a 

 bed of clean sand with a brown marl 4 feet in thickness, this covering 

 the fine limestone gravel. The larger drift is here absent, but may be 

 seen farther on the road in Mr. Moody's grounds at Rathaspick. The 

 largest stones occur in the surface soil. 



The next place where these shell gravels occur is on the side and top 

 of the hill near Castlebridge at Pulregan ; here the gravels are finer and 

 sandier, and the local covering drift is less conspicuous. 



For purposes of comparison with other deposits elsewhere, which have 

 been considered as the equivalents of these gravels, a careful examination 

 was made as to the nature and condition of this covering debris, and to 

 this end the mean of several gi'oups of twenty specimens, each picked at 

 random from the face of the section, gave the following results: — 



Little Pulregan 



Clonard No. 1. No. 2 



Quartz and quartz rock .... 6 7 10 



Cambrian or Ordoviciau .... 8 9 8 



Limestone ....... ^ 1 1 



Chalk flint 2 1 



Granitic pebble 1 1 



20 20 20 



The examination of a heap piled at one side in Little Clonard pit 

 yielded a larger proportion of quartz and Cambrian and less of limestone. 

 At neither place did the stones bear those marks of glaciation, striae, and 

 polishing that occur in the limestone drift proper. The pebbles are also 

 more rounded. 



Professor Harkness, ' Geol. Mag.,' vol. vi. p. 543, remarks on an 

 exposure of these beds at Castle Ellis, about eight miles to the N.W. of 

 Pulregan, that the sands and gravels are covered by a boulder clay 

 40 feet thick, ' abounding in angulai', sub-angular, and rounded blocks, 



