II.—On Supposed Fossiliferous Pliocene Clays overlying Basalt, near the Shore of Lough Neagh

Extract

In the GeologicalMagazine for December, 1876, appeared a short paper on certain clay beds near the south-eastern shores of Lough Neagh. The paper is intended to supplement a more extended communication entitled, “On the Age and Mode of Formation of Lough Neagh,” read by the same author—Edward T. Hardman, Esq., F.C.S., H. M. Geol. Survey of Ireland— before the British Association in 1874, and also read before the Royal Geological Society of Irealand in January, 1875. The beds in question are described“as a very extensive and important deposit spreading (under water and on shore) over an area that cannot be less than 180 square miles in extent, and probably in some places 500 feet thick. They repose on the basalt, and are covered by drift. All the evidence we have points to their being of Pliocence age.” The author, after giving a sketch of the Geology and physical Geography of the district, proceeds with a description of the clay beds and associated lignites, and gives abstracts of numerous borings ranging in depth from a few feet to 192 feet, which have been made over this area. These borings disclosed a series of light-grey and variously-coloured plastic clays, containing hard nodules of clay-ironstone inclosing leaf and other plant-remains, also large quantities of black lignite, occurring frequently in masses throughout the beds, but sometimes bedded.