Botany of the Shores of Lough Neagh. 41 



the eastern had been by Mr. Davies and others. A most 

 interesting point, briefly referred to in this paper, is the 

 occurrence of certain maritime plants at a locaHty so far 

 removed from the influence of sea water. The existence of 

 shells of littoral molluscs in a clay bed on the Crumlin River 

 had been cited as evidence proving that the sea, in a most 

 recent geological period, extended up into the depression of 

 Lough Neagh. Owing to one of the latest elevations of our 

 land this anciently maritime lough was now a freshwater lake ; 

 but these plants, which usually flourish by the seacoast, remain 

 to corroborate the evidence of the mussel shells of Crumlin 

 River. 



Mr. Wm. Swanston remarked that the occurrence of plants 

 whose natural habitat is along the sea coast so far inland, and 

 established on the margins of Lough Neagh, is a most valuable 

 point brought out by Mr. Davies, which goes far to confirm the 

 view that at no very distant geological date the Lough was 

 marine. This botanical evidence is new, but as far back as 

 187Q the same conclusion was surmised on geological grounds 

 by the discovery of beds, near the southern shore, containing 

 shells of the common mussel {Mytilus eduHs). These shells — 

 or rather fragments — were determined by the late Dr. Gwynn 

 Jeffreys, the greatest authority on British Mollusca then living. 

 The microscopic examination by our fellow-member, Mr. Joseph 

 Wright, of the strata in which the shells were found, also 

 prove the marine origin of the beds, Mr. Wright being able to 

 record several species of Foramenifera (a group of minute 

 organisms exclusively marine) from the small quantity of 

 material exammed, those being forms such as may readily be 

 found any day on our sea shores. Quite recently zoological 

 evidence was unexpectedly established by Mr. Robert Welch, 

 of our city, and Dr. ScharfF, of Dublin, who, while dredging in 

 Lough Neagh, found in some plenty a small crustacean {Mysis 

 relictd), new to Britain, but a member of a marine group of 

 which four species are recorded by the late Wm. Thompson 

 from the Irish coasts. These scattered pieces of evidence — very 



