9 
the sea. Following the trail of this drift backwards to its origin, I have found 
it in South Wales from Tenby to Stackpole Warren, and picked up flint flakes 
on the summit of Caldy Island. Trimmer has described the well-known 
white limestone (indurated chalk) of Antrim in the drift of Caermarthenshire* 
Murchison has marked the flint drift along the western coast of Wales m 
his geological map ; it has left its mark in large characters on the Isle of 
Man ; it has coated the islets and shores of Strangford Lough, and the trail 
ends with the numerous and often-described “ subsoil flakes 57 of Carrick- 
fergus and Larne. 
On the eastern coast of Ireland we have the evidence of the late Professor 
Jukes that “ chalk flints and pieces of hard Antrim chalk are found in the 
drift in the counties of Dublin and Wicklow, and along the whole eastern 
and southern coast of Ireland, at least as far as Ballycotton Bay, on the coast 
of Cork.” ( Manual of Geology , p. 675.) 
The Antrim drift is distinguished by characters which cannot be mis- 
taken : the indurated chalk known as the white limestone, the burnt flints 
which lie in a bed between the chalk and the basalt, and the basaltic 
columns themselves, tie up by a threefold cord, which cannot be easily 
broken, this peculiar drift to its native place in the disrupted chalk o 
Antrim. 
It is important also to observe that these flakes are found in a true geolo 
gical position, and form a well-defined stratum with other broken stones in 
the subsoil below the surface-soil : this is so generally acknowledged that 
they are now known as “ subsoil flakes ” ; and this is not only the case in 
Ireland and Devon, but it is notably so at Cissbury-hill, at Spiennes near 
Mons, and at Pressigny le Grand, where they are found by cart-loads, in a 
stratum two feet below the surface of the soil ; thus indicating a geological 
rather than an antiquarian origin. 
In some exposed parts of the Cornish coast i( bundles of flakes are found 
on the surface : thus, at Trevalga Head the beat of the sea-spray has 
weathered off the soil, and the exposed 'flakes and broken pieces of quartz 
thickly cover the ground, and indicate that the same natural cause which 
broke the quartz broke the flints. 
It is futile to argue against the old .surmise that the flints have been 
brought by vessels in ballast and spread with chalk over the land tor 
manure, for they are now seen embedded in contorted strata of drift in cliff 
sections, and scattered over infertile crofts, and barren moors which have 
never been cultivated or manured. 
* u Among the most remarkable of these (fragments) is the hard chalk of 
the county of Antrim^ of which a continuous stream has been traced in 
Ireland, from its source as far south as Wexford. The tail of this stream of 
Antrim detritus appears to have caught the Welsh coast, for we have found 
it in the Boulderclay of the extreme point of Caernarvonshire, and much 
further to the south, between Newport and St. David’s Head, in South 
Wales.” (Jour, of Royal Agricultural Soc., vol. xii. p. 463.) 
