iqo PREHISTORIC EUROPE. 



Ireland, and the admirable researches of a long list of Irish 

 geologists, including Griffiths, Oldham, Portlock, Jukes, Hull, 

 Du Noyer, Kinahan, Close, Hardman, Campbell, and many 

 others, have conclusively established the fact that our sister 

 island was buried under an ice-sheet hardly less extensive than 

 that which overwhelmed Scotland. Two sketch-maps, showing 

 the general trend of the striae in Ireland, have been published — 

 the first by Eev. Maxwell Close, than whom no one has con- 

 tributed more to our knowledge of Irish glacial geology, 1 and 

 the second, which being the more recent, contains the largest 

 amount of information, by Professor Hull. 2 From these maps 

 we gather that the ice flowed off Ireland in all directions save 

 to north-east in Antrim, upon the coast of which it encountered 

 the Scottish mer de glace, which forced it to turn away to north- 

 west and south-east ; but along the whole western and southern 

 shores, where no obstacle to its passage intervened, it seems to 

 have swept in one broad and continuous stream out, probably 

 as far as that of Scotland, into the Atlantic. The thickness 

 attained by the ice that flowed into the Irish Sea from Scotland, 

 where it coalesced with the mer de glace coming from the 

 eastern sea-board of Ireland, and also, as we shall presently see, 

 with that creeping out from England and Wales, makes it quite 

 certain that the area now occupied by that sea must at that 

 time have been filled with glacier-ice. 



The phenomena of glaciation are well developed throughout 

 extensive areas in England and Wales. Those of the Northern 

 Lake District and Lancashire and Cheshire have been studied in 

 great detail, and the movements of the ice, as determined by 

 the direction of roches moutonne'es "and striae, by the distribution 

 of the till, and by the carry of the stones in that deposit, have 

 been well ascertained by many enthusiastic workers, following 

 in the wake of Agassiz 3 and Buckland, 4 among whom are 



1 Geol. Mag., vol. iv. p. 234. 



2 Physical Geology and Geography of Ireland, p. 211. The general reader 

 who desires a well-digested summary of what is known of the old ice-movements 

 in Ireland, would do well to consult this interesting treatise. 



3 Proc. Geol. Soc, vol. iii. p. 328. 4 Ibid., pp. 332, 345. 



