116 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Acadeniy. 



of the solid land, but no^ isolated among the breakers — the huge pile 

 of fi'agments that lie on the beach, or have been heaped up far above 

 the tidal-mark — tell only too plainly how vain is the resistance even 

 of , the hardest rocks to the on^vard march of the ocean. The rate of 

 Tvaste along some parts of those islands is so rapid as to be distinctly 

 appreciable ^thin a human lifetime. Thus the start-point of Sanda 

 was found by llr. Stevenson, in 1816, to be an island eveiy flood 

 tide ; yet, even within the memory of some old people then alive, it 

 had formed one continuous ti'act of fii-m ground. Xay, it appears that 

 dui'ing the ten years previous to 1816 the Channel had been worn 

 down at least 2 feet. 



" Some few years back (about 1874), when the Channel fleet were 

 in the north, they attempted to pass to the westward through Westray 

 Pirth, in the teeth of a strong spiing flood; but all the Queen's horse- 

 power and all the Queen's men could not do it, and they had to turn tail. 



" Short storms of great violence are not the worst, being surpassed 

 by the long continuance of an ordinary gale, and during great storms 

 the devastation and ruin is very gi'eat. During a peculiarly severe 

 stoim, in 1862, in Stomna (in Caithness), in the Pentland Firth, the 

 sea swept right over the north end of the island, lodged fragments of 

 wreckage, stones, seaweed, &c., on the top, 200 feet above ordinary 

 sea level, and then rushed in torrents across the island, tearing up the 

 ground and rocks in their course towards the opposite side. The 

 heaviest rains and the most prevalent and strongest winds are fi-om the 

 south-west and south-east." 



As the west coast of Ireland is largely made up of the same classes 

 of rocks as those forming the Hebrides, the Shetlands, and the Orkneys, 

 and is more fully and directly exposed to the force of the Atlantic 

 waves, it is reasonable to assume that all that has been herein stated 

 as to the desti'uctive force of the ocean on these islands holds good, 

 even more strongly, as regards the western coast of Ireland — the 

 " "Wild "West," as it has been called — and we may admit that wear and 

 waste is going on there incessantly, even although we have no obser- 

 vations in support thereof. 



As regards the coast of Britain, from the coast of "\^'ales south- 

 wards, more has been observed and noted, and the resulting wear 

 recorded would tend to show what must have been the waste along the 

 south-western and southern coasts of Ireland, even although we had 

 no records regarding them. 



There is a very interesting article, by D. Mackintosh, Esq., f.g.s., 

 in the Quart. Journ. of the Geolog. Soc. of Zondo?i, vol. xxiv., 1868^ 



