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LII. 
THE DISTRIBUTION OF DRIFT IN IRELAND IN ITS 
RELATION TO AGRICULTURE. By J. R. KILROE, 
(formerly) F.C.S., H. M. Geological Survey. (PuatEe XV.) 
[Read Aprit 22; Received for publication Aueust 10; Published January 11, 1897.} 
Tux interest which your Society has for a long time taken, and 
is taking, in the advancement of agriculture, has earned wide- 
spread and just recognition. One of your commendable objects is 
the encouragement of Science as applied to industrial purposes ; 
and in consonance with this aim, I have the honour of laying 
before you some remarks upon the distribution of Drift deposits in 
Ireland in their relation to agriculture. The subject of these 
deposits is one which has frequently been dealt with since 1824 
when Weaver first called attention to the limestone gravels of 
Carlow, Wicklow, and Wexford. Amongst the investigators who 
have laboured in this field of inquiry may be especially mentioned 
the Rev. Maxwell Close, whose exhaustive paper on the general 
glaciation of Ireland appeared in 1866. Since that time many 
additional observations have been noted by the staff of the Geological 
Survey, and appear in the official publications as well as in Professor 
Hull’s “ Physical Geology,” in Mr. Kinahan’s“ Geology of Ireland,” 
and in papers by these and other authors, amongst whom may be 
mentioned Professors Sollas and Cole, Mr. Praeger, and Members 
of the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club. 
Hitherto, however, the Drift has been treated of, in detail, 
from a purely geological, rather than from an economic, standpoint ; 
and the attention which agriculture imperatively demands and is 
receiving at the present time, may warrant the application to that 
industry of the information available in the above sources, parti- 
cularly the maps and memoirs of the Geological Survey. 
It has generally been assumed that the structure of the Harth’s 
crust under a country, and the consequent geographical disposition 
of the strata, determine the nature of the superincumbent soils, and 
