1912-13.1 6 4 i 



It is confirmatory of these contentions that lignite has been 

 very plentifully recorded on the east side of Lough Neagh — 

 "from Cranfield southward to Seagoe in Armagh," to use the 

 words of John Kelly.* It will be particularly borne in mind that 

 the lignite at Claremont (Cranfield Bay) is associated with 

 lithomarge, formed in situ from Lower Basalt,! and that Upper 

 Basalt may not be very distant, though concealed by drifts. 



Sometimes, doubtless, the lignite occurs in fragmentary form, 

 indicating detachment from an original source, % but a source 

 which must be in proximity, because the substance is so friable. 

 Frequently, however, there seems good reason to believe, it was 

 formed in beds up to 5 feet and even 9 feet in thickness, and to 

 some extent continuous, and pure. So much so that an adit was 

 run upon one of these beds many years ago by a Mr. French. 

 There seems to me little doubt, therefore, that along the lake 

 shore on its east side, if stripped of its covering of Glacial and 

 post-Glacial deposits, there would be found proof of the existence 

 of the Interbasaltic Zone of rocks, just as in the case at Clare- 

 mont, near Cranfield Bay, on the north side. 



Nor is it only on the north and east sides that indications of 

 an important lignite Zone — in all probability of Interbasaltic date 

 — have been found : on the west side, too, lignite occurs at or 

 near the level of the lake. Mr. Egan mentions§ "a small pit" 

 (400 yards south of Salter's Castle) "used by people of the 

 neighbourhood to obtain lignite for fuel," as well as fragments of 



*Paper. Proceedings Roy. Irish Acad., Vol. X., pp. 307 et seq. 



t" Interbasaltic Rocks," p. 100. The suggestion that a widespread 

 exposure of this friable substance has been the source of all the lignite recorded 

 on the borders of Lough Neagh, or that such a substance should have survived 

 the denudations which removed its hard cap of Upper Basalt — including the 

 ordeal of at least three stages of glaciation — and remained for removal by later 

 erosion, as well as segregation by a sedimentary process, is a proposition that 

 many geologists will find it difficult to accept. 



jSome layers as thick as 15, 20, and 25 feet have been recorded at Sandy 

 Bay {Journal Roy. Geo. Soc, Vol. IV., p. 175), but the report has been 

 there called in question by the late E. T. Ilardman. 



§Explanation accompanying Sheet 27, p. 34. 



