295 
Geological Relations of the East of Ireland \ 
any considerable portion of the surface of the earth, or to reflect 
even upon the nature and disposition of its alluvial tracts, without 
recognizing the powerful agency of an agitated fluid, in a state of re- 
trocession. The abrupt and curved outlines, the fractured surfaces 
and denudations of extensive tracts, the sinuosities, glens, defiles, and 
Tallies, the salient and re-entering angles, the plains, all betray its 
course and moulding force. To ascribe such appearances to a gra- 
dual degradation, produced by the influence of the atmosphere and 
the current of streams, seems to be assuming causes wholly inade- 
quate to such effects. Yet, in our field of observation, the agitation 
of the fluid in question appears to have been confined < within certain 
limits. . The higher parts of the mountain chains exhibit no debris 
on their flanks, or in the hollows or dells by which these flanks are 
marked, except such as are of native origin, and referable to the 
rocks which compose those chains. It is only upon lower levels 
that we find these debris intermingled with the productions of con- 
tiguous tracts; above which, however, those levels are sometimes 
considerably elevated. 
§ 203. The flanks of the central part of the Eastern mountain 
chain are strewed with native debris, and these are dispersed over 
lower ranges for a distance of some miles from the central group* 
and sometimes under circumstances that claim particular attention. 
Cronebane hill bears upon its summit a boulder of granite, (called 
particularly as they respect the relative position of rocky formations* their general and 
subordinate structure, their inflections, interstratification, and inclusion in each other, and 
their frequent mutual connexion with those contemporaneous and true veins, by which all 
rocks are traversed in a greater or less degree. These phenomena seem rather referable to 
the opposite powers of chemical affinity and mechanical action, under the influence of 
hydrostatic pressure. 
