Wright and Muff — Pre-glacial Raised Beach. 259 



Occasionally a water-worn surface is found at rather higher 

 levels. This may be due to hard beds of sandstone or grit forming 

 the platform, or to a buttress of rock at the foot of a point which 

 projects forward from the pre-glacial cliff. In Powerhead Bay, 

 where the platform is cut in grits with thin slates, it rises at one 

 point to a height of 15 feet above the modern beach-shingle. 

 At the north end of White Bay (Cork Harbour entrance) the 

 pre-glacial beach attains the unusual height of 15 feet above high- 

 water mark of ordinary spring-tides. The beach may be traced east- 

 wards round Carlisle Fort, and southwards towards Roche's Point, 

 in both of which directions it gradually regains its ordinary level. 

 It, therefore, cannot be regarded as a beach of different age, 

 marking a period of greater submergence. 



The extraordinary height to which the beach rises in the north- 

 east corner of this bay seems to be connected with the fact that a 

 valley, which reaches the coast here, has on one side of it a broad, 

 terrace-like feature which slopes towards the sea. The beach- 

 gravel, which seems to have been driven up by the waves on to 

 this terrace, might be considered as a storm-beach. 



Sections near Camden Fort, and again in Courtmacsherry Bay, 

 are noted in the sequel in which the beach seems to have been 

 thrown up above the level at which it is commonly found. 



In many of the bays the buried cliff recedes inland; and the 

 platform, owing to its seaward slope, sinks to a low level where it 

 is exposed on the coast. West of Simon's Cove, in Clonakilty 

 Bay, where the platform is about 50 yards broad, the lower half 

 of it is covered at high tide. At Donaghmore, in the same bay, 

 the buried cliff is nearly 50 yards behind the present cliff of 

 boulder-clay and raised-beach shingle. Here the pre-glacial 

 . platform forms the modern shore, and high spring-tides reach up 

 to the foot of the drift-cliffs. In Ballycroneen Bay the pre-glacial 

 cliff retreats as much as 200 yards inland. In this case the base 

 of the lower head is below high-water mark, and the cliffs are 

 being worn away at a comparatively rapid rate. 



When due allowance is made for the formation of storm- 

 beaches and for the recession of the pre-glacial cliff into the 

 drift-filled bays, it is found that the beach maintains a remarkably 

 uniform level. In all the sections visited on the Wexford coast, 

 the beach-gravel appeared to be rather lower than in the western 



