( xcdx ) 



the present day. Also dryings up of rivers and lakes, three of which 

 are recorded between the years 1191-1490, and inroads of the sea. 

 Dr. Sigerson remarks that the further we go back in ancient history, 

 the more important is the nature of these phenomena, which seems to 

 prove that the island was more and more subject to seismical action 

 the further back we go in time. 



In a few instances the author draws attention to the fact that there 

 appears to be geological evidence of some great convulsion of nature in 

 some of those places spoken of in the Annals as the sites of such erup- 

 tions — in some examples subsidence of strata, in others elevation. For 

 instance, Lough Xeagh, which to the eye of the geologist appears to 

 be the result of, or connected with, a great subsidence of strata, is 

 mentioned by the annalist Tighernach, as having been, in the 64th year 

 of our era, the scene of a great inundation, in which the tribes who 

 covered the plain were destroyed. Lough Cong and Lough Mask 

 seem to have been produced by earthquake action running north and 

 south ; and their geological character supports this theory. 



There is much plausibility in his suggestion that many of our le- 

 gends connected with lakes, rivers, and wells, are derived from such 

 phenomena connected with earthquakes. 



The Annalists record a sudden eruption of a lake in the Co. "Wa- 

 terford simultaneously with a number of others in various parts of 

 Ireland, anno mundi 3056. The sinking of the submarine strata has 

 been observed in the County of Waterford by Dr. Sullivan. I think 

 it was first noticed many years ago by the late Dr. Farren, and is an 

 additional evidence of seismical action. I remember, when a boy, 

 hearing from the latter of an extraordinary spring tide, at the lowest 

 point of which a large district near Dungarvan was laid bare. This 

 presented a vast number of hummocks containing the lower portions 

 of the stems of the Pinus syhestris, which here once formed an exten- 

 sive forest. 



In my Address from this chair in ISTovember last, I observed upon 

 the paucity of the Biological papers read before the Academy as com- 

 pared with the number of such papers in the Royal Society ; but as re- 

 gards Biology a remarkable change has occurred. We have had not less 

 than twenty-three important biological papers during the last Academic 

 year, including the comparative and descriptive anatomy and phy- 

 siology of vegetable and animal life. I cannot avoid expressing how 



