Explorations in the Bone Oave of Ballynamintra. 179 
Dividing the valleys of the Colligan and the Brickey is a tract of bigh limestone 
ground which slopes slightly from Whitechurch towards Dungarvan, the ground 
above the Ordnance eighty feet contour line (the Ordnance zero plane is a mark 
on the Poolbeg Lighthouse, Dublin Bay, 8-094 feet below the mean level of the sea 
around Ireland) being margined by low cliff scarps or steep slopes. A detached 
tract of somewhat similar high ground occurs about Whitechurch House; while 
farther westward the ground between the Finisk and Blackwater, although as high 
as that just mentioned, has not its margins, except that to the eastward, as well de- 
fined. Besides the islands just enumerated, attention should be directed to the ancient 
channels. To the south there was a deep channel from Affane on the westward, 
to Killongford on the eastward; and from it “deeps” extended northward along 
the Finisk Valley and the N. and5. flat west of Whitechurch ; while these branches 
joined into a second nearly I. and W. channel to the north that extends from 
Cappagh to Dungarvan. At the junction of the branches with the north channel, 
a little S. W. of Cappagh House, a great shoal accumulated, now represented by 
the hills of shingle, gravel, and sand, to the eastward of the Cappagh railway 
station. 
The deposits characteristic of the channels are gravels, sands, and shingles, but 
in places in them there appear to have been deeper portions which subsequently 
formed lakes, and gradually were filled by accumulations of peat with its associated 
clays and marls. At times, during the raising of the peat by dredging for making 
turf, the bones of the Irish elk and red deer have been brought up, but of these 
Professor Leith Adams is of opinion, that the condition of the bones would indicate 
that “they came from the ancient lacustrine deposit (marl) under the peat ;” bones 
of red deer, man and domesticated animals have also been found in the muds 
and sands of the Dungarvan estuary. In places in the Dungarvan estuary there 
are accumulations of peat similar to the submarine peats found in the neighbouring 
bays of Ardmore, (where a crannog occurs in it,) Whiting Bay ; Youghal Bay which 
seems to have been called from the yew wood now submerged ;* and various other 
places on the Cork coast. 
The caves, the subject of the present inquiry, are generally found in the escarp- 
ment margining the high limestone ground, and those at present known are as 
follows— 
Valley between Dungarvan and Cappagh. 
Cave, No. 1—Swanpoy.—was in the quarry near Shandon House. This has been 
entirely quarried away. No record has been kept ot anything 
that may have been found. 
* As suggested by the Rey. Canon Hayman in his Guide to Youghal. 
