2 2 [Proc. B. N. F. C, 



cent mud. The main party visited St. Catherine's Well and 

 Church, and the remains of an old castle a short way south of 

 the town, none of which possessed any features of interest. 



By eleven o'clock all were again on the road to Carrick by 

 way of Muckross Head. The day became excessively hot, the 

 sun blazing down with great force. The character of the 

 country, too, had changed ; trees and hedgerows were in great 

 measure left behind, their places being supplied by rocks and 

 stone fences. At Muckross Head the party was met by Messrs. 

 John R. and James Musgrave, who kindly acted as conductors 

 to this very remarkable headland. A glance at its geology 

 made it evident, we had left the contorted and barren mica 

 schists which preponderate in the county, and were now on an 

 area of almost horizontal beds of the Carboniferous series. On 

 the exposed strata of the western shore of the point were ob- 

 served a number of singular spherical protuberances, about two 

 feet in diameter, the exact character of which it is difficult to 

 conceive ; they are dense segregations of lime, possibly formed 

 over some organic centre, such as a coral ; in many respects 

 they resemble the well-known septaria of the Oolite formation. 

 Near the point the rocks are piled up in wild confusion, the 

 results of many an Atlantic storm. The party were fortunate 

 in reaching the headland at low tide, and the view presented, as 

 they rounded the most southerly point, amply repaid for all the 

 toil of the journey. The receding tide had laid bare a wide 

 extent of calcareous sandstone, hard and smooth as the Caith- 

 ness flagging laid down on the footpaths of our own town, while 

 overhead projected for fully forty feet solid strata of the same 

 character. The intermediate beds, within the full influence of 

 the sea have been excavated, and all, except a few huge blocks, 

 removed. A most singular phenomenon is here presented : the 

 blocks referred to, probably weighing from ten to twenty tons 

 each, are, during the in-blowing storms, tossed about by the 

 force of the sea, in such a manner as to grind and polish the 

 solid floor on which they rest in an extraordinary way, and the 

 sides of the rock-bound space in which they are confined bear 



