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



Castle, a little further down the channel, the original part of 

 which is almost a duplicate, but in better repair, of Audley's 

 Castle, and is now in occupation as part of a farmsteading. 



From Strangford the party were soon on their way back, 

 via Slieve-na-Griddle, whose rocky summit, though only 420 

 feet above the sea, conveys the impression of being nearer a 

 thousand. Passing close by Lough Money, whose name it was 

 suggested might mean the " boggy lake," a short halt was made 

 at the so-called " Druidical " circle, of which seven stones are 

 yet standing. There is also a sort of passage of stones leading 

 up to it, but the whole is insignificant compared with others of 

 its class. It is pretty generally admitted now that these were 

 monumental rather than religious in their origin. The last 

 place visited was the wells of St. Patrick at Struell, once from 

 their reputed miraculous virtues resorted to from all parts of 

 Europe, but now nearly deserted. There is the "eye" well, 

 and the "drinking" well, the water of which was pronounced 

 by the members to be " delicious," each well enclosed under a 

 stone-arched canopy, and near by in a small bath-house, is the 

 third or bathing well. The walls of an unfinished chapel of no 

 great age are close at hand, and on the side of Struell Hill, from 

 the foot of which the springs issue, is St. Patrick's chair, which 

 some of the party climbed to. Residents not very old can still 

 remember the time when a sort of fair — presumably a " pattern " 

 — was held at the wells on St. John's day ; but no longer 

 encouraged, or at least winked at, by the clergy, these curious 

 old customs have now practically died out, a result, perhaps, 

 more satisfactory to the moralist than to the antiquarian. 



The antiquarian side of the Club's pursuits was in the ascen- 

 dant during the excursion, leaving the record of the naturalist 

 almost a blank. Some of the broader geological features of the 

 country were noted, especially the glaciated rock surfaces 

 recorded by the officers of the survey, but geology from a jaunt- 

 ing car is necessarily rather superficial. An interesting theory 

 of the surveyors was left undecided — viz., whether Strangford 

 Lough was not once a fresh water lake, originally excavated 



