34 Notices of Memoirs. 
them habits of industry, has resulted in procuring them not only 
competence but wealth. All the houses were built of crystalline 
sulphate of lime, and were roofed with cupolas; from a distance a 
village looking like a collection of bee-hives. ‘This singular custom 
is explained by the paucity of wood in that country: in the absence of 
beams to support the planking of a roof, they substitute a vault or 
a cupola, using the mid-rib of the palm-leaf for centreing. 
It is a curious trait in the inhabitants of Souf, that having no 
other water than that of the wells, and this water never remaining 
on the sandy surface of the soil, they have no idea of a brook, or a 
river, or any other kind of running water. 
-ABSTRACTS OF BRITISH AND FOREIGN GEOLOGICAL PAPERS. 
On THE Esxers or THE CentTRAL Prain or Irevanp. By G. H. Kinanan, Esq. 
(Read before the Geological Society of Dublin, Nov. 11, 1863.) 
ee to determine the mode of formation of a deposit 
from intrinsic physical evidence have lately become much more 
numerous than they were formerly. It was in this way that Mr. 
Sorby determined, some years since, the mode of formation of the 
sand-beds of Hastings, Isle of Wight, Yorkshire, &c., and last 
year the origin of certain mica-schists, through the occurrence in 
them of the structure he has designated ‘ Ripple-drift;’ and in a 
similar manner, Mr. G. H. Kinahan has recently discussed, in a 
paper read before the Geological Society of Dublin, the nature and 
origin of the Eskers of the Central Plain of Ireland. His paper is 
important, chiefly on account of its containing a proposed nomen- 
clature of Eskers, which we cannot explain better than by saying 
that it is nearly parallel to that of Coral-reefs proposed many years 
ago by Mr. Darwin; we thus have Fringe-eskers, Barrier-eskers, 
and Shoal-eskers, as parallel terms to those of Fringing Reefs, Bar- 
rier Reefs, and Atolls; but the relation of the last-named terms in 
each series is less evident than that of the others, and partakes 
more of the nature of antagonism than parallelism. 
Mr. Kinahan thus defines the three classes :—‘ The Fringe-eskers 
occur fringing high ground; the Barrier-eskers stretch from one 
high ground to another; or run out as a spit or bar from high 
ground; and the Shoal-eskers have been so called, as they seem to 
be similar to shoals and shifting banks of the present day.’ 
In case any of our readers may ask the question, What is an 
Esker? we may define it as a ridge, or rarely a mound, of sand or 
eravel, heaped up by the action of water, and derived from masses 
of the same material in close proximity to it. These masses, though 
they oceur elsewhere, are most abundant in Ireland, where they have 
received the name of ‘Esker;’ they are analogous to the sand- 
banks, harbour-bars, shoals, &c., now in’ process of formation, 
through the antagonistic action of tides and currents causing the 
accumulation of bottom-material at particular points —H. M. J. 
