Coffey and Praeger — The Antrim Raised Beach. 171 



the present raised beach. At the period of the growth of the peat-bed 

 of Belfast — the earliest post-Glacial deposit locally recognisable — this 

 ridge was joined by a broad base to the rising lands north of Larne 

 town ; and its crest was at least fifty feet above high water. Depres- 

 sion setting iu, the ridge, lying in the tide-swept entrance of Larne 

 Lough, suffered denudation, and the sea presently broke through, 

 across the neck which joined it to the mainland. The sweeping away 

 of the clay on the seaward (eastern) side left a beach of boulders, 

 which no doubt served to check further denudation. A barrier, 

 probably of gravels, occupying somewhat the position of the present 

 sea-margin from the steamboat quays northward, allowed of the 

 deposition locally of fine mud and blackish sand in the shallow waters 

 at the back of it. As submergence continued, we find a mass of yellow 

 sand, full of shells, thrown across the seaward end of the Bay Road 

 channel, and gravels began to be laid down against and around 

 the Curran islet, especially on the southern side, Avhere they formed 

 a long tail moulded by the tides. Depression continued to a total 

 amount of some fifty feet or more, and until the islet sank below the 

 sea, allowing a few feet of gravel to cover its highest point. By a 

 subsequent emergence (and, according to the evidence of Belfast and 

 other places, a final slight depression), the Curran was left as it was 

 until the advent of railways and factories broke up its surface, and 

 exposed for a while cuttings through the several beds of which it is 

 built up. 



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