{Proceedings Belfast Naturalists' Field Club. — Appendix 1886-1887.) 
On The Estuarine Clays 
AT THE 
NEW ALEXANDRA DOCK, BELFAST. 
4. 
the construction of the new Alexandra Graving Dock, on the 
County Down side of the river Lagan, some good sections of our 
Pose -tertiary Estuarine deposits have been exposed. Being constantly 
on the ground, I have had a favourable opportunity of observing 
the different beds over a considerable area, with the organic remains which they 
contain, and I propose to briefly describe the various strata pierced through in 
connection with this work, and some of their characteristic fossils. 
The Pleistocene Clays of the Lagan Estuary have already been closely 
scrutinised by members of this Club, and in the very complete list compiled by 
Mr. S. A. Stewart, F.B.S.E.,* containing the results of his own and Mr. (now 
Eev. Canon) Grainger’s f extensive researches, no fewer than 142 species of 
fossils are recorded as occurring in these beds. An examination of the deposits 
exposed in the excavations at the Alexandra Dock has resulted in some additions 
to this list, and in the present paper I shall notice such species as are noteworthy 
from their abundance or otherwise in particular beds, or which have not 
previously been recorded from our North of Ireland Estuarine Clays, and an 
annotated list is added of all fossils recently observed in the deposits in question. 
Figure 1 represents a section measured with the spirit-level near the inner 
entrance of the Dock, and it may be taken as a typical section of the beds 
exposed. Their relative thickness varied considerably in different parts of the 
works, but the same sequence was noticeable throughout ; and a similar general 
relation may be observed, not only where borings or sections have been made 
* Stewart— “ Fossils of the Estuarine Clays of Down and Antrim,” — Proc. Belfast 
Naturalists 1 Field Club, Vol. 1., Appendix II. 
t Grainger, in Natural History Review, Vol. VI., for 1859, 
