148 Proceedings of the Royal Irkh Academy, 



Kotices of this raised beacli, the classic one of the north of Ireland^ 

 are numerous ; and a detailed account has been published:^ so for the 

 present the above brief notice will serve. Afterwards we shall return 

 to the s abject, and add some further observations which we recently 

 made at Larne. 



The Kinnegar, at Holywood, is a similar, but less elevated gravel- 

 spit, laid down in quieter waters. At Ballyholme Bay, County Down, 

 the villas fronting the sea are built on 24 feet of beach-gravels, their 

 surface being now 20 feet above high water. At Kilroot, Carnlough, 

 &c., in Antrim, Green ore in Louth, and very many other spots around 

 the north-eastern coast, similar deposits of elevated marine gravels and 

 sands may be seen.- 



In Donegal, the elevated beaches show to great advantage ; but 

 here the conditions are somewhat different. Atlantic storms have 

 formed grand terraces of coarse gravel, with steep faces. The exist- 

 ing beach, when well developed, consists of a steep slope of such 

 gravel, rising to a height of about 20 feet above ordinary high -water 

 mark, and dropping again at the back sometimes 10 or 15 feet. The 

 raised beach appears as such a scarp of gravel, 30 to 40 feet in height, 

 separated by flat cultivated fields from the present beach. ^ 



The Estuarine Clay Series. 



It is, however, in our bays and estuaries that the finest series 

 of deposits are found. As these are usually seen only when exca- 

 vations expose them, and as the beds consist largely of unsavoury 

 mud, they did not attract for a long time the investigation which they 

 deserved; but we have now a knowledge of them which is very 

 important in dealing with post-Glacial land movements. 



At the head of the basin which forms Belfast Lough, the post- 

 Glacial deposits are of considerable thickness ; and, on account of deep 

 excavations made in connexion with harbour works, unusually good 



^ Praeger: "Eeport of a Committee of Investigation on the Gravels and 

 Associated Beds of the Curran, at Larne, County Antrim." Proc. Belfast Nat. Field 

 Club, series 2, vol. iii., pp. 198-210. 2 plates. 1890. 



2 For notices of these beaches, see Praeger: Keport on the Eaised Beaches 

 of the North-east of Ireland." Proc. E. I. Acad., 3rd ser., vol. iv., pp. 30-54, 

 plate I. 1897. 



2 Praeger: "The Eaised Beaches of Inishowen." Irisli Nat., vol. iv., pp. 278- 

 285. 1897. 



