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Irish Sea through the North Channel which separates Great Britain from Ireland ; 
but sometimes, before this takes place, the detached portion which passes up St. 
George's Channel from the south has marked high water along all the eastern 
shores of Ireland, and has ebbed for some time before the great tidal wave comes 
down from the north after completing its boreal course, the consequence of this 
apparent anomaly is, when the St. George's Channel current which entered from 
the south is nearly at half ebb tide, the influx of the marine current from an oppo- 
site direction through the North Channel, causes the tide to rise again along the 
shore, to the great amazement of those dwelling on the coast, who designate these 
double tides " Dead Men's Waves." 
Sometimes when geologizing along the sea shores of Ireland, and the water has 
receded a considerable distance, I have been surprised to see the tide flowing in with 
rapidity a second time, and out of its regular course. These double or irregular 
tides always rise and recede with greater rapidity then the regular flux and reflux 
of the sea. 
In Kewstoke Bay, near Weston-super-Mare, some small low dunes occur, but 
I did not observe anything connected with them requiring particular notice. 
When casual observers look at a series of dunes, or heap3 of shingles, they 
only see in them vast accumulations of sand or pebbles, but the reflective geolo- 
gist can perceive in the arenaceous deposits, the material to be hereafter consoli- 
dated into extensive beds of sandstone, and in the heaps of shingle the rudiments 
of future massive beds of conglomerate. 
Mr. W. W. Stoddart, F.G.S., considered that the effects of sand and 
mud were the two principal causes of stratified beds in England. At Tenby 
were many illustrations, where also the sand was being consolidated by the 
bindweed. Near Sydney, Australia, a church-yard was being washed away 
by the sea, bodies occasionally being laid bare, and covered up again by 
the disintegrated old Red Sandstone, which eventually became reconsolidated. 
Mr. H. K. Jordan, F.G.S., agreed with the author in attributing many 
of these sandy accumulations to subae'rial agencies, but thought that many 
also were due to secular variations in the relative level of land and sea, 
giving as an instance the raised beach at Weston-super-Mare, so well 
described by Mr. Ravis, in November, 1865. It would be interesting if 
those parts of the country which would be inundated by a depression of, 
say, 20 feet, could be coloured on an ordnance map. At Perran was 
another instance of a church being buried. 
Mr. C. F. Ravis spoke of the series of dunes in Chew Stoke Bay, near 
Weston, the highest of which was 80 feet above the present beach. He 
considered these to be the dunes of several successive sea-beaches. 
Mr. Stoddart remarked that the accumulations described by Major 
Austin were too recent to have been formed in the manner suggested by 
the two last speakers. 
