246 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



along the northern base of the hills, on which this boulder rests, is 

 not more than 100 feet.* 



Over the whole of the Killarney district, the range of the Eeeks, 

 Torek mountain, the mountains between Killarney Lakes and Kenmare, 

 and between Kenmare and Glengariff, wherever rock surfaces are ex- 

 posed freshly or denuded of the Drift, they are more or less rounded 

 and polished, and bear the marks of glacial striao. This is very appa- 

 rent over the rocky bosses in the Upper Lake district of Killarney, 

 at an elevation of about 96 feet above the sea ; and the striae are ob- 

 served up the western side of Torek mountain to a height of over 600 

 feet, where they appear to have been produced by the impinging of ice- 

 masses against this flank of the mountain on their passage from the 

 glen of the upper lake to the west, and before they were deflected to 

 the northwards through the gorge between Torek mountain and the 

 " Eagle's Nest" mountain, into what was comparatively the open sea 

 lying to the northward. 



Many rounded and striated rock-surfaces are to be seen at a 

 height of 1000 feet above the sea in this district, the striae having a 

 general direction of N.W. and S.E., being frequently thin at the end 

 pointing to the former, and blunt at that turned to the latter point 

 of the compass. If we suppose that the force which produced these 

 scratches was exerted from the N.W. to the S.E., and its motion to 

 have been one of sudden starts or bumps, we should expect that marks 

 having the peculiar form of those observed would be the result. 



In such glens and gorges as the Gap of Dunloe, and what is now 

 the bed of the Upper Lake at Killarney, the glacial striae are invariably 

 parallel to the longest axis of the valley, as we would expect if they 

 liad been produced by the passage of large masses of ice, or, as in the 

 Gap of Uunloe, by the movements of a glacier. In the former there- 

 fore tl\e direction of the striae is N. and S., and in the valley of the 

 latter E. and W. 



At the lower or nortliern end of the Gap of Dunloe there is a very 

 remarkable deposit of Drift ; it consists of three lunet-shaped 

 mounds, formed of local sand, gravel, and boulders, extending across 

 tlie mouth of the glen. The two outer mounds measure fully one 

 iTiile in length from east to west, by about 100 yards in width; and 

 they are all cut through near their centre by the Eiver Loe. As this 

 mass of Drift extends for the distance of fully one mile from the ab- 

 solute base of the mountains, and the entrance to the Gap, we may 

 * See ' Memoirs of the Geological Siu'vey of Ireland/ p. 184:. 



