162 



REPORT — 1879. 



Report of the Committee, consisting of the Rev. Maxwell Close, 

 Professor W. C. Williamson, and Mr. W. H. Baily, appointed 

 for the purpose of collecting and reporting on the Tertiary 

 {Miocene) Flora, &c, of the Basalt of the North of Ireland. 

 Drawn up by Wm. Hellier Baily, F.L.S., F.G.S. (Secretary). 



The discovery of plant-remains in a deposit of brown and red bole under 

 a thin bed of lignite, and immediately over a thick bed of conglomeritic 

 or pisolitic iron ore, interstratified with the basalt of County Antrim, was 

 facilitated by the excavations made for extracting this valuable iron ore, 

 which has been found to extend over a considerable district of the North 

 of Ireland, having been largely worked at various places. 



The locality which has yielded the largest number of specimens is at 

 and close to a cutting through basalt on the Belfast and Northern Coun- 

 ties Railway at Ballypalady, about seven miles east of Antrim. The 

 section observed at that place, and supplied to me by the late G. V. 

 Du Noyer, District Surveyor of the Geological Survey of Ireland, was the 

 following, that gentleman also having sent me the first consignment of 

 these interesting fossils for examination : — 



4. 



C <£> O » o o O eu n 





i rt c' o o c- © 



1. Basalt, 15 feet. 



Layer of brown earth, 3 inches thick. 

 Layer of impure earthy lignite, 8 to 

 12 inches. 



4. Bed of brown earth or bole, passing 



into red at the lower part, and gra- 

 duating into the plant bed, No. 5. 



5. Plant layer, 4 to 8 inches thick. 



6. Bed of pisolitic iron ore in ferruginous 

 earth, 3 feet exposed. 



7. Rails resting on basalt. 



7. Basalt overlying chalk, thickness vari- 

 able. 



A notice of these plants, as well as some accompanying insect remains, 

 was communicated by me in 1869 to the Geological Society of London. 1 



Since then I have visited the locality several times, always obtaining 

 fresh materials and increasing the list of species. In addition to these, 

 and to the use of the specimens in the collection of the Geological Survey, 

 I am indebted to William Gray, Esq., F.G.S. , and William Swanston, 

 Esq., F.G.S., of Belfast; the Rev. Dr. Grainger, of Broughshane, near 

 Ballymena ; to the Belfast Natural History Society ; and to the Director 

 of the Natural History Museum of Science and Art, Dublin, for permission 

 to draw and describe the specimens in their several collections. 



1 Quarterly Journal Geol. Sue. of London, vol. xxv. p. 357, plates xiv. xv. 



