30 [Proc. B. N. f.C, 



the open country was reached, and the road to Ballynure and 

 Straid was pursued. The harvesters were everywhere busy, and 

 abundant, well-saved crops from the carefully-cultivated district 

 were being gathered in. After a pleasant ride of two hours, 

 the little village of Straid was reached, and here the company 

 were met by Mr. Sutherland, of the Irish Hill Mining Company, 

 who conducted them over these works. Undertaken originally 

 to raise iron ore, the new mineral, bauxite, was discovered, and 

 so abundantly, that it has been worked of late almost to the 

 exclusion of the ore, though, should the iron trade again revive, 

 large quantities of the ore could be supplied from these works. 



Bauxite, of which large quantities are now shipped to Eng- 

 land from the County Antrim, for the manufacture of alum, and 

 the treatment of sewage by the precipitation system, has been 

 so recently described in the Proceedings of the Club, and of 

 other societies, that it need be no further described here, except 

 to say that it bids fair, in connection with the mining of iron 

 ore, to add largely to the prosperity of the district, which may 

 now be fairly said to have added to its character as a manufac- 

 turing county, that of a mining one also. 



The workings, of which there are several, extending many 

 hundred yards under Irish Hill, are commenced at the lowest 

 position from which the strata can be reached, for the con- 

 venience of drainage, and of getting out the loaded waggons 

 tramways being laid with a gentle incline up the adits, which 

 run into the very heart of the hill. Two of these were entered, 

 the small trucks being made available as an extemporised pas- 

 senger train (first-class), with a stout labourer behind each as 

 the locomotive power. The bauxite here is ab out six feet thick, 

 the floor and roof being of solid basalt. 



The iron ore of Antrim, as is now generally known, is found 

 on the top of the lower sheets of basalt, and has resulted from 

 its gradual decomposition whilst an ancient land and lake 

 surface, which was subsequently covered over by other volcanic 

 outflows, which form the upper layers of basalt, and are here 

 seen as the roof of the mine. 



