G. H. Kinahan — ^olian Drift. 157 



in a glacier. Here the silt, instead of being carried out to sea, has 

 been heaped on the beach, changing what formerly was a coarse 

 shingle into a deep fine sand. Moreover, if report speaks true, 

 when the crafts for shipping the ore first frequented the bay, it had 

 a rocky bottom devoid of anchorage, while now it is sandy ; and 

 hereafter, if perchance the sea-bottom were elevated, there would be 

 a deposit of blowing sand, liable to be carried hither and thither by 

 the winds, and formed into sand-dunes and hillocks, the characteristic 

 features of these sand deposits. 



Off the east coast of Ireland, in various places, are large sand 

 banks. Two of them occur near the mouth of the Eiver Liffey, and 

 are called the north and south Bulls, and others will be found off" the 

 coast between Dublin and Wexford, the largest being the Kish and 

 Arklow Banks. The valley of the Liffey must have received the 

 waters from all the glaciers that occupied the valleys on the north 

 and north-west slopes of the Dublin and Wicklow hills, while the 

 several sand-banks off the coast of Wicklow and Wexford ^ seem to 

 be connected with the different valleys on the east and south of those 

 mountains. Thus the Kish Bank is partly opposite the Liffey valley 

 and partly opposite the valley of the Bray Eiver ; while the banks be- 

 tween Bray and Wicklow seem each to be connected with small river 

 valleys, the largest being the valley of the Vartry, that empties itself 

 into the sea at the town of Wicklow. The Arklow Bank is opposite 

 to the valley of the Avoca Eiver, which extends northward from 

 Arklow by Eathdrum into the heart of the Wicklow mountains ; 

 while the banks and sand-hills in the neighbourhood of Wexford 

 Harbour, are in the vicinity of the mouth of the valley of the Eiver 

 Slaney. 



The writer of these notes, when he had completed the examination 

 of the country north of the mouth of the Shannon, believed that the 

 large accumulation of ^Eolian Drift, banked against the south slopes 

 of the hills there situated, was of recent origin, being at the 

 present day in course of formation. To this belief he was led by 

 those hills, for the most part, being composed of a friable sandstone 

 that apparently disintegrated freely. Therefore he considered that 

 the rain-wash had been, and still was, carrying the sand from the 

 hill-tops to the south slopes, quite forgetting that the sand would not 

 stop there, but be carried on to the plain below. Since then additional 

 experience has proved to him that his reasonings were unstable, more 

 especially when on the slopes of similarly circumstanced hills, such 

 as those of Slieve Aughta, at the junction of the Counties Clare and 

 Galway, which for the most part are composed of exactly similar rocks, 

 he found no banks of these peculiar sands.^ Moreover, he observed 

 that similar sands seem only to occur at, or opposite to, or in the 

 vicinity of the mouths of valleys, and the larger and more extensive 

 the valley the greater the accumulation. From these circumstances 



^ There are sand deposits on the sea-board, but as the writer is not thoroughly 

 acquainted with them, they are not mentioned in these notes. 



^ I do not mean to assert that none of the sund was formed recently by meteoric 

 action, but I now believe the mass of it is glacier-formed. 



