$j6 [Proc. B.N.f.C. 



SUMMER SESSION. 

 ^ 



2 June. 

 CARRICKFERGUS. 



The Second Field Meeting of the Club was held in a salt 

 mine near Carrickfergus. A party of 50 reached Kilroot by 

 the 12.30 train, and walked along the shore to examine the 

 raised-beach gravels that occur near the station. These gravels 

 are remarkable for the numerous worked flints they contain, 

 and which are almost identical with the very oldest forms of 

 worked flints found in Europe, and indicate that this locality 

 was the site of an ancient flint factory worked by primitive 

 man. Here specimens can be collected that are similar in every 

 respect to the typical forms displayed in museums as the 

 earliest product of human workmanship. Such examples are 

 often referred to in justification of the wildest theories as to the 

 age of man, whose origin is sometimes referred to an inter- 

 glacial or preglacial age because of the rude forms or the other 

 conditions under which the worked flints are found. There 

 cannot, however, be any doubt as to the relative age of the 

 Kilroot gravels, for they rest upon the estuarine clays which 

 overlie the boulder clay, or glacial deposits, and therefore 

 demonstrate that the contained worked flints were manufac- 

 tured long subsequent to the deposit of the boulder clay, at all 

 events in this locality. 



While many members of the party were carefully examining 

 the gravels others were equally busy making additions to their 

 botanical collections. The short time and very limited range 

 of exploration did not promise much, but some of the plants 

 collected are worthy of mention. The viper's bugloss was 

 seen growing on waste ground close to the station, and the 



