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



with all other structures available for garrisons. The members 

 appreciated the numerous features of interest, the more so that 

 the owner, General Montgomery, keeps the whole place in such 

 beautiful order, and thus makes the spot an ideal one, to which 

 too few of the ruins of this country attain. A most notable 

 feature is the number and variety of mason's marks on the 

 stones, which are comparable to marks found in other buildings 

 in Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and 

 Palestine. The lines used by the stonecutter some 700 years 

 ago for squaring up the stone are also visible here and there. 

 The crowded graveyard to the east of the abbey was also 

 visited, where lies the old table tomb of the il Rev. James 

 Porter, Dissenting minister of Gray Abbey." He it was who 

 wrote the famous letters in the " Northern Star," entitled 

 " Squire Firebrand," for which he was hanged in 1798 in view 

 of his own manse. 



Tea was provided on the hill close by, where an extensive 

 view delighted the eyes of all present. Strangford Lough and 

 its islands, with the blue Mourne Mountains in the distance, 

 and the ruins of the old abbey nestling amongst the trees 

 beneath, added every feature necessary for a perfect picture ; in 

 fact, it is doubtful if there is so fine a view in all County Down 

 as is here to be had in the evening sunlight. 



At five o'clock the wagonettes were then once more mounted, 

 and the party drove off, passing on the way, close to Mount- 

 stewart, a vast erratic of basalt resting on triassic sands and 

 marls, of which R. Welch has taken a capital photograph. 

 Belfast was reached at eight o'clock, where the members dis- 

 persed. The botanists of the party found nothing rare, but 

 Scedum telephium and Anchusa sempervirens, which were in 

 great quantity. In one spot the double variety of the lesser 

 celandine and an extremely large variety of the bluebell were 

 growing in abundance. The geologists only spent a few 

 minutes at a small section of boulder clay, from which, how- 

 ever, a good specimen of a striated block was extracted. 



