Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 3.djvu/170

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

seen at Maheramesk near Moira, in the valley of the Forth near Belfast, in the valley of the Woodburn, near Carrickfergus, and at Castle Chichester in the island of Magee. In all these localities, veins of a delicately white fibrous gypsum occur: salt springs, the usual accompaniment of similar strata, are found near Carrickfergus, and in other places.

The sandstone has been sunk into near Lisburn nearly 200 feet without reaching its inferior extremity, and the red marl which overlies it near Belfast is estimated as varying from 40 to 100 feet in thickness.

The outgoings of the sandstone strata are low, they dip towards the hills on the north west.

2. Sandstone on the Cast and north east coast of Antrim.

The same sandstone which has thus been traced as far as the head of Lame Lough, may thence be pursued in various points on this coast, but since its superior edge is often depressed below the level of the sea, and on the other hand its inferior edge is in one instance elevated far above that level resigning the coast to formations of greater antiquity, it presents in this part of its course an irregular and broken line, of which the description will be the more readily followed if postponed to the explanatory notes on the section of that part of the coast subjoined to this paper.

3. Sandstone in the east of Derry.

The variegated marle which covers the sandstone, first makes its appearance, rising from the level of the sea, a little to the west of Downhill near the mouth of the Roe, thence it passes to the south west, bassetting along the base of the bold headland of Macgilligan, and of Benyavenagh the most northerly mountain of the secondary chain in Londonderry. At Kedy hill the next of the groupe, the sandstone, which continues ascending towards the south west,