190 Proceedings of the Royal Trkli Academy. 



(p. 13.) — " ^0^ if any of the islands near the shore he examined, 

 where faults do not exist, their hedded rocks will be found to resemble, 

 more or less, in dip and direction, those of the adjacent mainland ; and 

 even in the distant Skelligs the strike of the beds has the same general 

 direction as that of the rocks, of which the whole promontory is com- 

 posed. From this it appears that the rocks forming these islands were 

 once in continuation with those of the land, and are even now con- 

 nected with them by intermediate portions beneath the sea, some of 

 which have projections still above its surface, such as the Lemon 

 Eock, between the Skelligs and the shore, Beginish, with the adjacent 

 islands in Valencia Harbour and those Ijing between Scariff and 

 Deenish, at the northern enti'ance to Kenmare Eiver, and not far from 

 Lamb Head, near Derrynane. It was the gradual but ceaseless action 

 of the sea-breakers which cut ofl the islands from the mainland, and 

 it was a similar action of erosion, exerted upon the rocks now forming 

 this mountainous promontory, as they were gradually rising above the 

 level of the sea, which scooped out its valleys, and, taking advantage 

 of the numerous joints and master-joints found in all stratified rocks, 

 formed all the cliffs and principal featui'es of the ground, which have 

 since that time been modified to some extent by atmospheric influences, 

 and by the glaciers which have left their marks in so many of the 

 glens. 



" The supposition that the wearing action of the sea is sufficiently 

 powerful to have produced these results is much strengthened by con- 

 sidering the force with which this coast is assailed by the storm-waves 

 fi'om the Atlantic Ocean. An examination of the shore-line will show 

 that they have produced cliffs of a bolder character, though not of so 

 great a height as some of those which occur inland ; while in some 

 instances they have undercut the hard rocks forming these cliffs, and 

 have removed portions of them, so that the rest overhangs the sea ; 

 and iu other places caves and long fissures have been worn beyond 

 the coast-line far into the land. 



" (Xote.) — As an illustration of the fuiy with which the breakers 

 act upon this coast it may be mentioned that during an autumnal gale 

 from the north-west I have seen the sea break clean over Lamb Island, 

 in Yalencia Harbour, which has a height of 78 feet above low water, 

 and then runs down its eastern slope in sheets of foam and spray. It 

 is stated, too, that water-tanks, or butts, near the upper light-house, 

 on the Great Skellig Eock, close to which, a height of 380 feet, is 

 marked upon the Ordnance 6-inch map, have been washed from their 

 places in the course of severe gales ; and that the Horse Island, at the 



