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



operations for the electric tram at Mount Vernon, Shore Road. 

 The section is of interest, as the first noticed on the Antrim 

 side of the Lough of any considerable height, south of Kilroot 

 point. It seems, however, tO' be higher than the latter above 

 the sea, as it rises on the north side of the large dyke, which 

 here penetrates the Triassic sandstone to about 23 feet above 

 the sea ; while the raised beach gravels at Kilroot do' not exceed 

 14 feet above high-water mark. The Belfast section has also' 

 on it those rude worked flints, for which Kilroot has been long 

 famous, and a very black earthy zone, containing flint flakes, 

 charcoal, and oyster shells, seems to be the remnants of a pre- 

 historic kitchen-midden, an interesting find well within the city 

 boundary of a large manufacturing town like Belfast. Mr. 

 Phillips then began his lecture, and said — "For too long a time 

 Ferns had been well-nigh neglected amidst the varieties of 

 vegetation which embroider the earth. No gaudy flowers do' 

 they wear tO' win the admiration of wandering eyes and the 

 cultivation of fair hands. They are content tO' grow unseen, 

 save by the eye of the adventurous explorer of mountain and 

 valley, of fastness, fell, and waterfall. 



Ferns, Lycopods (club-mosses), and equisetae (horse-tails) 

 have come down to us from a period of the world's history 

 when flowering plants had not even begun tO' appear. Although 

 appearing still earlier, it was in carboniferous times, when the 

 greater portion of our coal was formed, that ferns attained their 

 zenith, owing probably to the warm, moist climate that the 

 north-west of what became Europe then enjoyed, and the whole 

 of the then land becam,e quickly clothed with ferns and 

 magnificent trees. Amongst the buried forests of carboniferous 

 age, 500 varieties of this vegetation are found, tree-ferns and 

 club-mosses hardened tO' stone. Ferns are there to be seen in 

 astonishing variety, and of very different sizes. Some resembling 

 the bracken of the woods grew into trees of large dimensions, 

 bending with flowing leaves ; others remained lowly, like the 

 ferns that flourish in our vales to-day. Gradually these ancient 

 forests sank beneath the floods of sea water, and settling into 

 the sand and mud of the sea bottom have been transformed by 



