1879-1880.] 423 



sheet of moving ice which once covered our own country, and to 

 which its physical features are mainly due. Blocks of Antrim 

 chalk have been carried to Cork ; boulders of granite from the 

 Mourn e mountains have been scattered over the central plain ; the 

 soil of our plains in many places has been transported by ice. In 

 the neighbourhood of Newtownards the underlying rock is sand- 

 stone, but the soil consists mostly of heavy clay, derived partly from 

 the chalk and basalt of Antrim, but chiefly from the hills of Silurian 

 strata, south of Belfast Lough. It is evident that moving ice has 

 scooped out the whole of the Swiss valleys. Without this agent 

 Switzerland would have been one vast snow-clad plateau, without 

 human inhabitants, and wanting that sublime scenery which attracts 

 travellers from the ends of the earth. 



The paper, which commanded the close attention of the audience, 

 was followed by an interesting discussion on the various glacial 

 phenomena touched upon by the reader. The election of new 

 members brought the meeting to a close. 



On 3rd February— the President (Mr. Wm. Gray, M.R.I.A.) in 

 the chair)— a paper was read by Mr. F. W. Lockwood, Architect, 

 on " The Round Towers : who built them, and for what purpose ?" 



This paper was a notice of the various contributions towards this 

 question since the publication of the late Dr. Petrie's celebrated 

 work. The conclusions at which Dr. Petrie arrived were shown to 

 be generally sound, though, with the enlarged knowledge now at 

 our command, it turns out that he assigned too early a date for 

 many of the Irish monuments. The leading point which his work 

 attempted to establish, was, that many of the early Irish churches, 

 and the towers, have such a remarkable similarity in their details, 

 that they must have been the work of the same builders. An 

 examinatioa of the additional materials collected in the works of 

 the late Lord Dunraven, Miss Stokes, Mr. Brash, the "Ulster 



