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



sweep of the Sallagh Braes, Knock Dhu and Scawt Hill ; with 

 the bold headland of Ballygalley, round which runs the coast 

 road, looking dwarfed beneath them ; and farther on the Carn- 

 lough Mountains and Garron Point, possibly even Cushendun 

 beyond, but the rain clouds still held possession in that quarter, 

 so the eye turned seaward, and there, below and beyond the 

 Gobbins, lay the broad channel, with the long swell breaking 

 everywhere into foam as the freshening breeze met and con- 

 tended with the flood tide, now at its strongest. Descending 

 the slope, the party were soon at the foot of the fantastic cliffs 

 with which the Gobbins terminate, and here the Club held 

 their meeting, the Rev. George Robinson being called to the 

 chair, and, as well as the roar of the surf and a " skiff" of rain 

 would permit, the business was transacted, several new mem- 

 bers elected, and the conditions announced of the prizes to be 

 competed for. The party then broke into groups, some busy 

 with hammers amongst the Chalk, Greensand and Lias rocks, 

 which in somewhat puzzling confusion stretch along the beach, 

 others turning over seaweed to find the somewhat scanty relics 

 of marine life which the high tide and waves would allow to be 

 discovered, and others with sketch-book or camera to preserve 

 some permanent record of scenes which have ever been 

 favourites with our local artists. Undoubtedly the most inte- 

 resting feature of this bit of the coast is its geological formation. 

 It is not like the shore on the southern side of the Belfast 

 Lough, for instance, where a number of the secondary and 

 palaeozoic formations have, by successive volcanic convulsions 

 at different epochs, been thrown up and down, till the various 

 small patches, which are all that are left after ages of denuda- 

 tion, are at length found within a few yards of each other, upon 

 the same level, along the beach at Cultra, and nowhere else 

 within a circuit of many miles. In this other case we have the 

 same order of rocks that stretch all round the Antrim coast to 

 Portrush — the Triassic at the bottom, then the Lias clays and 

 shales, the Greensand, and the Chalk, with the great basaltic 

 outflows everywhere over all ; but yet here, all is in confusion ; 



