166 



Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



FUETHER ISToTES OX THE LaENE RaISED EeACH. 



The raised beach of the Curran, at Larne, is of the highest 

 importance in our present subject, considered either geologically or 

 archseologically. Seven or eight years ago the Northern Counties 

 Railway Company cleared out the gravel, which formed an escarp- 

 ment on the southern side of their line at Larne Harbour, back to the 

 boundary of their property, and dressed the cutting down to an even 

 slope ; and thus the classical section of the Larne raised beach, so 

 often visited by geologists and archaeologists, disappeared for ever. 

 Fortunately, this section — the most instructive which the Curran of 

 Larne has yielded — had previously been systematically investigated, 

 described, and measured. Other sections, formerly available, are also 

 no longer exposed. Last Easter, with kind aid from Mr. B. D. 

 Wise, chief engineer to the railway company, we spent three days 

 directing digging operations at the Curran, in order to procure for 

 the Academy's collection a further series of localized worked flints 

 from various depths in the gravels. In view of the destruction of 

 former sections, and the prospect of building or other operations 

 obscuring those that remain, it may be well to place on record what 

 observations we made, and to attempt a general description of the 

 geological topography of this interesting spot from the materials that 

 are available. 



The general configuration of the ground is seen in Plate IT. The 

 Curran consists of a long tapering gravel-spit, rising from 10 to 20 feet 

 above high -water mark, and extending from the west side of the 

 nan^ow entrance of Larne Lough southward into the waters of the 

 bay for a distance of three-quarters of a mile. The gravels are clean, 

 and include many marine shells ; they rest in some places on Boulder- 

 clay ; in other sections, a bed of blue Estuarine Clay, accompanied by 

 blackish sands and gravels, is interposed between. The peculiar interest 

 of the Larne raised beach in local geology and archaeology, as is well 

 known, rests on tlie fact that from top to base (a maximum depth of 

 20 feet) it yields worked flints of Xeolithic type. 



The geology of the Curran having been already described in several 

 papers,^ we need not repeat here what is already published, but proceed 

 at once to the additional details which we wish to place on record. 



1 For an account of the literature of the subject, and of the beds themselves, see 

 Praeger's " Eeport on the Larne Gravels," "Report on the Estuarine Clays," and 

 " Report on the Raised Beaches," already referred to. 



