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Sandstone, the Chalk and Trap of the County Antrim. He then 

 showed that the true position of the Carboniferous system, and, 

 consequently, the place for coal, would lie between the Permian 

 and the Silurian of the County Down, or below the New Red Sand- 

 stone. Now, the New Red Sandstone, covered by thick beds of 

 Chalk and Trap, extended over the greater part of Antrim, half of 

 Derry, and a portion of Down. This area is bounded mainly by 

 bold escarpments, along the slopes of which the successive beds 

 are very clearly shown, and that there was no indication of the 

 Carboniferous system anywhere along the outside limit of the 

 Triassic beds thus extended over the County Antrim and parts of 

 the Counties of Derry and Down, except the districts of Bally- 

 castle and Dungannon, both of which Mr. Gray believes are com- 

 pletely detached from the area referred to. Coal, he said, was 

 generally found in the Carboniferous system, lying in beds or 

 basins on the underlying rocks ; and, as a proof that such did not 

 exist near Belfast, he referred to the pocket or basin in the 

 Silurian of the County Down, which was an extension of Strang- 

 ford Lough into Belfast Lough, and which is at present filled with 

 the Triassic beds that can be traced along their margin ; and, 

 taking into account their dip and strike, together with that of the 

 underlying Silurian rocks, there was no evidence whatever of the 

 existence of any representation of the Carboniferous system, the 

 small patch at Castle Espie being probably the remains of Car- 

 boniferous strata which once existed in what afterwards became 

 the scooped-out valley just referred to, indicating that the process 

 of denudation, which removed the Carboniferous system not only 

 here, but all over Ireland, took place prior to the deposition of 

 the New Red Sandstone. It was impossible to say whether the 

 Carboniferous might not occur in pockets over the Silurian and 

 other rocks under the trappean plateau of Antrim ; but they might 

 suppose it improbable, from the fact that all over the County 

 Down — itself remarkable for its undulating character — there are a 

 great number of natural basins in the Silurian rocks, and in none 

 of these are there any remains of the Carboniferous system. And 

 taking this area covered by the New Red Sandstone, we have on its 



