1898-99.3 4 6 9 



tnagee called "Barney's Point," on the east shore of Larne 

 Lough. Last week the Field Club's fifth excursion for the year 

 was to Barney's Point. We went by Magheramorne, and. 

 crossing the lough by the ferry, reached Millbay. from which 

 Barney's Point is but a short walk. 



As it was low water when we arrived, the outcrop of the Lias 

 was very fully exposed. 



Our investigations were not confined to the Lias, and there- 

 fore of the members of our party some took to botany and some 

 to entomology, but our meeting was mainly for geology, for 

 which this point is so well adapted. 



Standing at Barney's Point and looking over the lough to 

 Magheramorne, we can see a very excellent section of our 

 Northern rocks forming the face of the limestone quarry at 

 Magheramorne, where it is worked for economic purposes. 



Below the cultivated soil of the surface we see a considerable 

 deposit of boulder clay, which tells of the severity and changes 

 of the glacial period. Below this we have the dark basaltic 

 rocks, which is the record of a long-continued period of violent 

 volcanic eruptions, during which many of the hills of Antrim, 

 Scotland, and the Continent were formed. Below this we have 

 the white limestone or chalk and the greensand, the former a 

 deep-sea and the latter a more or less shallow-water deposit. 

 Going back in time, as we descend in the formations we come to 

 a great break in geological time, for we find the upper green-sand 

 rests on the lower lias, so that the middle and lower green-sand 

 with all the oolite series, and the upper and middle lias beds are 

 entirely absent. These absent beds comprise a series of rocks 

 several thousand feet thick, including the Bath and Portland 

 oolites, the Oxford, Kimmeridge, and Bradford clays, &c. 



We are only left the representation of the 'lowest liassic beds, 

 and they rest upon the new red sandstone series, which forms 

 the slopes of the hills about Belfast at the Antrim side. The 

 lias does not occur elsewhere in Ireland. If we can now imagine 

 that the boulder clay, the basaltic rocks, and the sheet of chalk 

 or limestone covering County Antrim were entirely removed, 



