ON THE 'manure' GEAVELS OF WEXFORD. 139 



limestone, quartz, schists, and granites (many of the limestones being 

 beautifully striated), intermixed "with thick beds of sand, often tilted at 

 an angle of 70° to 80° to the beach, beneath which they pass, reappearino- 

 at intervals near the Shanganagh and Bray rivers. 



Resting upon, and in places overlying it, are the beds associated with 

 the Middle drifts, made up of loose sands, gravel, and occasionally large 

 blocks of granite and quartz, the cliffs gradually declining towards the 

 south, where they sink to the shore a short distance north of the Shano-a- 

 nagh river. The upper portion of the section is composed of smaller 

 gravel, and is so similar to the older drift that it is impossible to separate 

 them, water action having mixed them together. The fossils in this 

 horizon are chiefly confined to the lower portion of the section and are 

 rather local in their distribution. 



A shell-bearing gravel has been recognised for many years past as 

 existing high up the Three Rock and Kilmashogue Mountains at eleva- 

 tions of 1,000 to 1,200 feet. Beyond the facts that these mountain 

 gravels are largely limestone, and the shells all included in the fauna of 

 the lower ones, there is nothing to connect the two. On the contrary, 

 the shells, unlike the lower-lying species, are many of them scratched, 

 and none of the arctic forms are at present known ' to occur there. 



The Shanganagh river flows by the base of a perpendicular cliff, about 

 fourteen feet high, sloping rapidly from the coast inland. The base is a 

 limestone drift (lower drift), passing upwards into a marly clay full of 

 large, rounded granites, angular limestone blocks, and quartz rocks. 

 Coastwise it is of limited extent, soon disappearing beneath the sandy 

 marls referred to in the next section as occurring north of the Bray river. 

 A few fragments of shell are present in the marl, which contains a few 

 seams of pebbly gravel. It may be worth notice that where the marl is 

 seen resting upon the limestone drift lai-ge blocks of granite abound, and 

 limestone is almost, if not altogether, wanting. One out of a large number 

 of granite blocks lying upon the shore I found to be 16 feet in circum- 

 ference. 



The shell gravels at Ballybrack have yielded an interesting series of 

 fossils. I have, as in the case of the Wexford lists, given those collected 

 by myself and then those obtained by other searchers not included in my 

 own finds : — 



Aporrhais pes pelicani. 

 Buccinum undatum. 

 Dentalium entalis. 



„ Tarentinum. 



Fusns antiquus. 

 Hydrobia ulvfe. 



„ ventricosa. 

 Littorina littorea. 

 „ rudis. 

 „ obtusata. 

 Nassa reticulata. 

 „ pygmsa. 

 „ nitida. 

 „ granulata, 

 Natica Alderi. 



„ catena ? 

 Pleurotoma costata. 



Kissoa parva. 



„ membranacea. 

 Succinea oblonga. 

 Turritella terebra. 

 Trophon trnucatus 

 Astarte borealis, 

 „ compressa. 

 „ sulcata. 

 Cardium edule. 



„ echinatum. 

 » pygmsum. 

 Cyprina islandica. 

 Corbula nucleus. 

 Leda pernula. 

 „ buccata. 

 „ minuta. 

 Lutraria elliptica. 



> See lists in ' The Elevated Shell-bearing Gravels near Dublin,' Eev. Maxwell 

 Close, M.A., Jourti. Roy. Geol. Soc. Dublin, 1874, vol. iv. p. 36. 



