( clviii ) 



"The accompanying book, from pages 1 to 9 inclusive, consists of 

 sketclies of rock-structure more or less developed, in the sand-hills of 

 Doolin and Liscanor Bays, in the County Clare. These sketches were 

 made in 1868, but I had several years pre^-iously noticed the same 

 appearances at Ballybunion, in Limerick, and I had observed a 

 general agreement between these crude formations and the rock- 

 structure of the adjoining districts. 



" No. 10 is the only sketch I have preserved of like appearances 

 in transported clay. It is a highly laminated mass, taken from an 

 artificial embankment near Ragatz. But all the adjoining alluvium is 

 of similar structure, due to its deposit by the Ehine, and this lump 

 may have been taken from a mass thrown up from the flat, which 

 would neutralize its evidence. Its structure is horizontal. I regret 

 that I have lost my drawing of a vertically divided face of clay 

 exposed in the mound of an ancient earthen fort at Bull Head, Dingle. 

 I made many other observations of like structural tendencies in 

 hand-transported masses of mud, clay, and quarry dehris at Yichy, 

 Gasteia, and at Buxton ; but I lost my notes of these at Truro, two 

 years ago. One of the most striking examples I had noted was a 

 mass of road-stuff on the highway, south of "Werfan, on the way to 

 Gastein, which appeared to me to show a remarkable likeness in 

 structure to the highly laminated gneiss rock of the district. 



"It is with gxeat diffidence I say anything of glaciers; but 

 noticing no agency of pressure to account for the blown sand or 

 adventitious clay cleavages, I was early led to question the theory 

 which assigns to pressure the rock-like structure noticeable in some 

 ice formations. The sketches from IN'os. 11 to 21 inclusive were made 

 with the analogies which those cleavages suggest before my mind, 

 and they may have unconsciously influenced my pencil. But I fancy 

 Professor Forbes, in his ' Alps of Savoy,' had not these considerations to 

 mislead him, when he made his drawings of the very distinct rock 

 structure displayed in the glaciers of the Brenva (p. 203) and Macug- 

 naga (p. 347). 



" If my impressions of the existence of a real analogy between the 

 effective causes of those appearances be, to any extent, probable, it may 

 appear desirable to the Academy to possess the original sketches made 

 with a view to investigations which the publication in 'I^ature' will soon 

 cause to be taken up by more competent inquirers. I would, therefore, 



