F. R. Cowper Reed—The Coast of Waterford. 505 
Boulder-clay; moreover, their unworn condition generally enables 
them to be easily recognised. 
Of the non-local sedimentary rocks the commonest are white, grey, 
or yellowish fine-grained quartzites occurring as well-rolled and 
rounded boulders up to a foot in diameter. Some coarser-grained 
quartzose grits may also be occasionally found. 
Blocks of Carboniferous Limestone in a well-rounded condition are 
frequent; they are usually of a dark bituminous variety, and often 
contain fossils (Zithostrotion, Productus, etc.), and some of these boulders 
measure two feet in length. A pale-grey crinoidal limestone from the 
Carboniferous Series is sometimes found. Pieces of chert are rare, 
and no flints such as Messrs. Wright and Muff have described on the 
Wexford coast have been observed. 
Of the non-local igneous rocks a rather coarse-grained but non- 
porphyritic grey granite occurs rather plentifully in much rounded 
boulders and subangular blocks of all sizes, and it seems identical 
with the Mt. Leinster granite. Boulders of pink granite of two or 
three varieties aremuch lesscommon. A greyish granophyre or micro- 
granite is as abundant as the grey granite; and likewise blocks of 
a diorite, several gabbros, coarse porphyritic diabases, aplites, quartzose 
schists, schistose felsites, gneisses, augen-gneisses, veln-quartz, vein- 
breccias, etc., may be extracted out of the cliffs in a more or less worn 
and rounded condition. 
The derivation of this varied assortment of non-local rocks from the 
area to the north (Wexford, Kilkenny, Wicklow, etc.) cannot be 
doubted, and the Boulder-clay which contains them must be regarded 
as the deposit of the inland ice! and not of that from the west or the 
Irish Sea. 
At a point about 500 yards south of Passage East, where the cliffs 
of drift reach a height of 30-40 feet, we notice coming in at their base 
beneath the Boulder-clay a more or less bedded deposit of angular 
slabs, flakes, and chips, of the slates, shales, and flags of the pre- 
glacial platform which was exposed on the foreshore nearer Crooke. 
The fragments are sorted into fairly uniform sizes, 2-4 inches in 
length, and le flat and closely packed without much intervening finer 
material. The deposit rapidly increases in thickness as we follow it 
northwards in the cliffs. The base of it becomes much coarser, the 
fragments being 1 to 2 feet long, but still lying flat and horizontal, and 
all consisting of ragged angular slabs of the slates, etc. A few small 
rolled pebbles of Old Red Sandstone may be found in this Lower 
Head, but they are very rare. The upper part of the deposit, on the 
other hand, becomes composed of minute flakes and chips of soft Old Red 
purplish shales aggregated into a loose crumbling and unconsolidated 
mass of material, without any appearance of bedding and extremely 
apt to slip down on account of its incoherent character. Near the base 
ot the coarse slaty head at the foot of the cliffs there is a layer, 4 inches 
to 6 inches thick, of similar angular fragments cemented together into 
‘ferricrete’ by infiltrating water with iron oxides, and it can be 
traced horizontally for over 50 yards. An interesting section is seen 
~ 1 Wright & Muff, Scient. Proc. Roy. Dublin Soc., vol. x, part 2 (1904), p. 269. 
