558 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



This stone lias a good reputation in Belfast, where it has been 

 largely used. " 



" Dungannon stone," from Mullaganagh, or the Banfurly 

 quarry, Co. Tyrone, was used in the new additions to the Royal 

 University, and has held its colour well. 



The creamy sandstone from Mount Charles, Co. Donegal, has 

 been used extensively in the new building for the Science and Art 

 Department, Leinster House. This seems to be the first place of 

 note in Dublin where it has been tried. 



Sand and Gravel. — In this area, in the ground that is below 

 the two hundred and fifty feet contour line, but more especially 

 below the one hundred feet contour line, there are large accumula- 

 tions of sand and gravel. In some localities, however, especially 

 those below the lower line, the gravel and sand has extensively 

 been worked out for road and building purposes, large areas being 

 cleared of the accumulations that once existed, so that anyone now 

 mapping the edges of the gravel terraces would draw lines quite 

 different to those of the margins of the original sea-beaches. This 

 is specially the case in the tract between Booterstown and Dublin. 

 As, however, these sands and gravels are so prevalent in the county, 

 good^Y sand can be procured in numerous places. 



The Drift Cliffs of Killiney Bay are for a large part composed 

 of these gravels, and the sands, the washing from the cliffs, have 

 within the last thirty or forty years come into great repute, so 

 much so, that now, almost as fast as the beaches form, they 

 are carted away, to the great detriment of the owners of the ad- 

 jacent land, as their land, being deprived of its natural protection, 

 is rapidly carried away by the sea. This removal of the sand, and 

 consequent waste of land, has led to various lawsuits. 



[Within the last forty years, since the great trade in Killiney gravel has been in- 

 stituted, the cliffs, from a want of their natural protection, are receding backwards at 

 a rate of at least one foot every year ; while, in certain places, the destruction is even 

 much more extensive, exceeding two or even three feet per annum. From careful 

 calculation made on the coast of Wexford, where the natural waste of the drift-cliffs 

 at the present day is greater than elsewhere in Ireland, the average waste is one foot 

 per annum, the excessive waste in two or three other places being three feet per annum, 

 and in one or two as much as four feet and five feet. 



These wastes on the coast-line are very interesting, some being evidently due to 

 artificial structures. Thus, the intaking of the north and south slopes in the Slaney lagoon 

 (Wexford Harbour) changed not only the character of the Dodder Bank, at the mouth of 

 the lagoon, but also that of the Lucifer Shoal, six miles off its entrance. And these 



