SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



85 



THE MOUKNIC MOUNTAINS. 



By R. Lloyd Praeger, B.A. 



**PHE fine mountain group of Mourne, anciently 

 ■*■ Beanna Boircke (the peaks of Boirche, an 

 Irish chieftain), lies in the southern extremity of 

 co. Down, in the north-eastern portion of Ireland. 

 On a day of tolerable clearness, as far south as 

 Dublin, their lofty domes may be sighted rising out 

 of the blue waters of the Irish sea, far to the east- 

 ward of the low and indented coastline, the eastern 



To the eastward the Mournes impend over the 

 Irish Sea, where their picturesque outline , 

 the eye of the summer visitor to the Isle of Man. 



With these distant views acquaintance has, in 

 most cases, stopped, for few have ventured on a 

 thorough exploration of these brown hills and deep 

 silent valleys. The reason is, probably, absence 

 of knowledge concerning the district, unacquaint- 



R. Welch. Photo.] 



Slieve Bernagh, Mourne Mountains. 





edge of the great limestone plain, that stretches its 

 sinuous length between. From the north, as seen 

 from the neighbourhood of Belfast, the Mourne 

 Mountains tower up nobly beyond the undulating 

 and fertile surface of co. Down. From the east- 

 ward we get glimpses of the long ridges of their 

 western extremity as the train hurries us northward 

 through the rugged hills and boggy flats that lie 

 around the huge mass of Slieve Gullion, in 

 Armagh — that mountain famed in Irish romance 

 as the home of dread wizards and strange monsters, 

 and the scene of hero-deeds by mighty champions. 



June, 1895. — No. iC, Vol. II. 



ance with the picturesqueness and scientific inte- 

 rest of this region, and with the important fact that 

 comfortable though unostentatious inns are to be 

 found in almost all the villages that lie along the 

 margin of the mountains. 



We shall, then, briefly sketch the natural 

 tenures of this region. All the higher mountains, 

 and the more interesting ones, lie to the eastward, 

 where the little town of Newcastle faces the Irish 

 Sea, with the mountains overhanging it on the one 

 side, and the broad sands stretching away north- 

 ward on the other. Right above Newcastle rises 



