162 HEPORT— 1881. 



Third Report of the Committee, consisting of Professor W. C. 



Williamson and Mr. W. H. Baily, appointed for the pur- 



p)ose of investigating the Tertiary Flora of the North of Ireland. 



Draivn up hy'^'iLiAA.u Hellier Baily, F.L.S., F.G.S., M.R.I.A. 



{Secretary). 



[Plates I. & II.] 



The present Report is an account of the continuation of work conducted 

 by the Secretary, the results of which have been laid before the British 

 Association at their last and a previous meeting. 



The still further opening np of the iron ore dejDOsits in the County of 

 Antrim has enabled us to continue the investigation of the plant-remains 

 associated with it. 



By the identification of these plant-remains we are enabled to fix the 

 period at which they lived as being Lower Miocene, and thns to deter- 

 mine the age of the great flow of basalt which is estimated at fifty miles 

 long by thirty wide, and consequently to extend over about 1,200 

 square miles of the north of Ireland, attaining in some places a thickness 

 of 900 feet. They also afford strong evidence of being contemporaneous 

 with other volcanic districts, such as those of the island of Mull, on the 

 west coast of Scotland, and North Greenland, where mid-European 

 plants, such as these, once flourished. 



Most abundant amongst these plant-remains in the North of Ireland 

 is the sequoia, a species of cypress allied to the great Wellingtonia — 

 Sequoia sempervirens and S. gigantea of California. The species from 

 these deposits is closely allied to the fossil Sequoia Langsdoifi, but has 

 been considered sufficiently distinct to receive the specific designation 

 of Sequoia Du Noyeri. Another species from the ironstone nodules 

 found on the shores of Lough Neagh is evidently identical with Sequoia 

 Couttsice, common at Bovey Tracey, also occurring on the Baltic shores 

 and at North Greenland. 



Impressions of wliat appear to be the cones of Sequoia and other 

 fruits are not unfrequent in the sedimentary ochreous deposits of Bally- 

 palady, and at the same place are masses of wood, evidently coniferous, 

 which may probably have belonged to the Sequoia. 



Mr. Walter Jamieson, manager of the Eglinton Company of Glasgow's 

 Mining Works at Glenarm, has kindly furnished us with much valuable 

 information respecting the Miocene deposit there, which is worked by 

 that company in connection with the aluminiferous earth or bauxite, 

 and contains an abundance of plant-remains from which on our various 

 visits we have obtained many interesting specimens. He estimates these 

 deposits, nnder the Upper Basalt, at not less than 50 or 60 feet in thick- 

 ness, and states that at Cullinane, near Glenarm, in the course of the 

 mining operations carried out under his direction, he had been fortunate 

 enough to find upwards of twenty specimens of fossilised wood of large 

 size. One of these deserves special meution, as being the root and about 

 five to six inches of the erect stem of a tree which was found under about 

 50 feet of basalt. He describes it as ' having a decidedly charred 

 appearance, its upper portion being in immediate contact with the basalt, 

 and the stem and root imbedded, to their full extent, in the aluminous 

 clay.' On a recent visit to Glenarm, this gentleman exhibited to ns fi-ag- 

 ments of several of these large trunks of trees which he had collected, 

 some showing knots. One of these pieces of wood measured in its flat- 



