230 F. R. Cowper Reed — Carries of Comeragh 3Tountains. 



valleys on its south side. Standing on the Gap in the Comeragh 

 Kange between Knockanaffrin and Couragorra, we look westwards 

 down the Nier Valley and note that the Gap is in reality a low col 

 at the head of the Kiver Nier. On our left we observe several deep 

 tributary valleys entering the main valley from the south, and their 

 generally bare craggy sides and hanging mouths attract attention. 

 The head-stream of the Kiver Nier issues from such a valley 

 immediately on our left, and this valley starts behind Coumgorra 

 and has its mouth spanned by successive banks and mounds of 

 coarse morainic material. It lies at a considerable height above the 

 thalweg of the Nier Valley itself, as in the case of a typical hanging 

 valley, and its sides are rocky and precipitous in places and glaciated 

 close to the present stream (see Geol. Surv. Mem., Sheets 167, 168, 

 etc., p. 80), which has cut a small gorge at the head of the valley in 

 its descent from the summits above, which rise to a height of nearly 

 2,500 feet. 



A long narrow spur, only about 250 yards wide, separates this 

 interesting glen from the large amphitheatre containing the 

 Comeragh Loughs. This elongated amphitheatre or short hanging 

 valley appears to be a composite corrie like Coumgorra, and its wide 

 mouth (measuring nearly three-quarters of a mile across) faces 

 nearly due west. Its depth is only about 700 yards, and its sides 

 are precipitous, the lofty cliffs reaching a height of over 700 feet. 

 The mouth of this corrie is blocked in the usual manner by glacial 

 mounds, and the two lakes which it contains are separated also by 

 heaps of morainic material. The inner lake, which measui'es about 

 200 yards across, lies at an elevation of 1,650 feet, and the outer and 

 lower one, which is of rather smaller size, at 1,537 feet. The stream 

 which flows out of the inner one is joined by one from the lower 

 one and then runs down to the Nier. No clear evidence of the 

 existence of a true rock-basin is at present available. 



The immense corrie or short rocky valley named Coumstilloge, 

 which holds the Stilloge lakes at a level of about 1,700 feet above 

 eea-level, is the next one down the Nier. It faces the north-west, 

 with a mouth nearly a mile wide, and with a depth of just over 

 a mile. It appears to be formed by the confluence of three simple 

 oorries, two of which seem to have become merged to compose the 

 broad amphitheatre at its head which holds on the east side Loughs 

 Coumstillogemore and Coumstillogebeg, which are in close proximity 

 to each other and lie in line along the stream which runs down to 

 the main valley. To the west of these tarns there lie in the smaller 

 corrie of the head-pair three small unnamed tarns without any 

 surface-outflow. The mass of Coumfea Mountain, 2,340 feet high, 

 projects into the south-western side of the composite corrie and 

 overhangs the third or lateral constituent corrie which holds Lough 

 Couma beneath precipitous cliffs about 600 feet high. This tarn 

 has also no visible outlet. 



The minute features of this Stilloge Valley and its group of 

 lakelets have not yet been thoroughly examined, but it appears that 

 glacial dams and mounds have led to the formation of the lakelets^ 



