Ball — President's Address to the Royal Geological Society. 73 



in respect to the application of scientific treatment to practical 

 subjects. 



In support of the statement made above as to the commercial 

 value of some of the productions which have been enumerated, 

 reference need only be made to the large export trade which is 

 done in Antrim iron ores; to the granite setts and ornamental 

 granites which are exported from Newry, the former having been 

 sent as far as Chicago, and the latter to Bucharest, and it may be 

 added as being, perhaps, still more noteworthy, to Grlasgow. The 

 roofing slates of Ireland are not as yet by any means so largely 

 employed as they deserve. I say this while fully conscious that 

 they sometimes have defects which militate against their universal 

 employment. 



Every resident in this city is aware that there are here in 

 Dublin a number of chemical works engaged in the preparation 

 of manures, bleaching powders, acids, &c. Although I know it is 

 not the case in all, still at one of these works I found recently 

 that no one of the substances of mineral origin which were used in 

 these manufactures was the product of Irish soil. 



As might be expected, all the metal-work of the machinery 

 and the lead of the acid vats had been imported. The phosphates 

 were from South Carolina and Cambridgeshire. The pyrites from 

 Spain, after burning it, is reshipped to Swansea, where it is treated 

 in the wet way to extract a small percentage of copper present in 

 the ore. The manganese and the salt were also imported, and so 

 were the large stone slabs used in the construction of the acid vats. 

 Nay, more, the very limestone used in the manufacture of bleach- 

 ing-powder comes from England, although Ireland is so especially 

 a limestone country ; and, in the Co. Antrim, possesses chalk of 

 exceptional purity, which is, to some extent, exported from Belfast 

 to England, to return, perchance, as bleaching-powder, for the use 

 of the linen works. 



Nearer at hand to us, at Skerries, I am informed, that a lime- 

 stone of good quality is obtained ; yet neither it nor the Temple- 

 more limestone, also well suited to the purpose, are used at the 

 particular works I refer to, though they are at others. 



The, as yet, unallotted subjects upon which we hope hereafter 

 to publish reports, namely, the cements and the pottery clays, are 

 certainly not of least importance. The materials are known to 



