282  -REPORT—1858, 
Report of the Belfast Dredging Committee. By Guoren C. HynpMan. 
For the purpose of carrying out the investigation of the Marine Zoology of 
the coasts of Antrim and Down, the Committee named at the meeting of the 
British Association held in Dublin last year proceeded to make arrange- 
ments early in the present summer. Dr. Dickie and Edward Waller, Esq., 
repaired to Larne, county Antrim, where they remained for a fortnight 
during the month of June, accompanied by the writer for the greater portion 
of the time. Some difficulty was experienced from the want of boats and 
boatmen. Eventually a yawl, with a crew of five men, was ordered from 
Groomsport, county Down, and on the 23rd of June a steamer was hired 
and brought from Belfast by Mr. Patterson. 
With these means for work, the following portions of the coast were 
explored :— 
lst. The shallow water lying between the small islands called “The 
Maidens” and the shore as far north as Ballygalley Head. 
@nd. The northern shore of Island Magee, including Brown’s Bay and 
« The Cod-bank,” lying north of the Isle of Muck. 
3rd. Larne Lough. 
4th. The deep water outside the Maidens’ Lighthouses. 
5th. The Turbot-bank and the deep water adjacent. 
A small basketful of the sand procured from the Turbot-bank was for- 
warded to J. Gwyn Jeffreys, Esq., and a list of its contents made out by 
him, amounting to 127 species of Testacea in that small quantity of sand. 
Among these are several very rare shells—a few of them new to the British 
list, and several to the Irish. 
The weather was in general unfavourable, and interfered very much with 
the operations. Among the submarine rocks off the Lighthouses, where the 
depth was from 80 to 100 fathoms, the current ran with such strength and 
rapidity that the dredges got foul several times, and were recovered with 
great difficulty and loss of time. For further exploration in that quarter 
some better mode of procedure would require to be adopted. 
Dr. Dickie having now been obliged to leave us for Aberdeen, Mr. Waller 
took lodgings at Groomsport in order the better to continue the investiga- 
tion, and, along with the writer, made a number of excursions in different 
directions. 
lst. Across Belfast Bay, between the Copeland Islands on the south and 
Black Head on the north. 
Qnd. Outside the entrance of Belfast Bay, eastward, into 60 fathoms depth, 
and across to the Copelands. 
3rd. Off Black Head and along the Gobbins as far as the Isle of Muck, 
including the Turbot Bank. 
4th. The shores of the Copeland Islands and Groomsport, with the Sound 
between the Islands and the coast of Down. 
5th. A submarine bank, composed of coarse stones, broken shetls, and 
mud, with a number of living Mollusca, lying south of the Copeland Islands, 
a mile south of Donaghadee, and about a mile from shore, in 20 fathoms 
water, and called “The Riggs” by the fishermen, who are in the habit of 
setting their long lines there. 
From the extent of the area indicated by the boundaries above mentioned, 
it must be evident that the portion passed over by our dredges must be 
comparatively very small, and that the lists of species enumerated can only 
be taken as an approximation to the whole number in the region. ‘The 
