210 KEPORT — 1887. 



sliell8 occasionally perfect,' but tisually mucli waterworn and broken, 

 continuing upwards into seams of sand and large gravel, both devoid of 

 life-remains. 



Tbe lower sands are well exposed in tbe cliffs on the nortb side of the 

 Slaney river, where they repose directly upon the Cam bro- Silurian altered 

 rocks. They may be traced northwards to Castlebi-idge, where they 

 pass up into the higher members of the series at Pulregan, and again 

 seven miles off, near Castle Ellis, the very scanty shelly gravels occurring 

 only at considerable elevations on the inland or right flanks of the 

 elevations bordering the coast. A little beyond Arklow the highest gravel 

 only is present, near the coast, this being the northern limits of the 

 series. 



Returning to Wexford, one notes the same order of stratification 

 on the right flank of the elevated mass of altered rocks rising behind 

 Wexford. At Rathaspick, the most southerly point to which the writer 

 has traced the gravels, only the uppermost gravel is present ; but higher 

 up the road, about two miles off, in Little Clonard, on the same side of the 

 ridge, the upper and shelly portions of the series are well exposed in some 

 sandpits looking towards the Forth Mountain. Here the top gravel is 

 interspersed with thick beds of sand, much thicker than at Pulregan, 

 eight miles away, but is equally wanting in fossils. From Little Clonard 

 the slope descends rapidly for a distance of three-quarters of a mile, and 

 then rises as sharply to the summit of the Forth Mountain, passing over 

 boggy upland and clay, derived from the decomposed subsoil, or schists 

 and quartz gravel. 



Three miles north and east, descending towards the river Slaney, the 

 sands, with traces of comminuted shelly sands, appear behind Wexford 

 town, and complete the outline. 



From these observations it would appear that the sands and associated 

 shelly gravels are the remnants of a once widespread series, occupying a 

 channel entering somewhere to the south-west of Wexford, having for its 

 right shore the ridges and hills extending from the coast behind Wexford, 

 thence north- hy-east to the shore at Arklow. 



The deposit of which these are the scanty remains was accumulated 

 before the river Slaney had broken through the Cambro- Silurian schists 

 near Fitzstephen's Castle, since it has cut its way through the lower 

 sands forming part of its banks. 



Sir H. James says that a boulder deposit overlies both the Wexford 

 and Wicklow drift, and Professor Hull intimates that the Wexford 

 gravels are without doubt of Middle Glacial age, the faunas being the 

 same and covered by a similar di'ift. 



The writer traverses both these statements. Clay with included rocks 

 abounds, and may be seen in process of formation, rain and heat alike 

 contributing to the disintegration of the original bed rock, the altered 

 Cambrian decomposing rapidly. Unlike the gravel or drift covering the 

 Middle Glacial, the gravels above the shelly part of the Wexford manure 

 gravel are purely local and bear no marks of ice action, and it is very 



• The term ' manure ' applies more especially to this poition, the sheUy gravel being 

 spread over lands for the lime contained in them. Shell-bearing loams, and loams 

 containing lime derived from the disintegration of Carboniferous limestone are also 

 used for this purpose, the usual test of its presence being effervescence when treated 

 with oil of vitriol. 



