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subsoil of this bank is totally different from that of the opposite; and that, except where the river has not found its course exactly at the boundary line, which is drawn by nature, there is not, in one bank, a single fossil, which is common to the other. I do not speak of detached matters brough adventitiously, but only of substances found in their native stations.

Above the gravel, in this district conmences a bed of clay. The general colour is red, with veins of blue; it is stiff until turned to the frost and sun; and after such exposure, it becomes manageable. As to farming purposes, it has been already described when treating of Magilligan. This clay is not always washed down from the decomposition of rocks, as in the flag countries, but is an inclined plane or oblique section of an argillaceous bed, on which, first the white limestone, and over that the basalt and trapp rocks, are stratified. In Magilligan this clay dips with the limestone under the sea near Downhill: at Benbradagh it rises with the limestone nearly to the summit of the mountain. It lays in an inclined plane, rising in an angle of about seven degrees towards the S. W. This clayey bed is intermixed with some varieties. Immediately under the limestone there is a rich marl, in colour varying from blue to yellow and white, and with other changes of stiffness from that of clay to that of burned lime. The thickness of this bed is about 12 feet. Other beds of marly matter, with gritty limestone, are met in lower situations, and still lower, bluish flag of lime, with amonite shell-stones. In the bed of the Balteagh river also is a calcareous freestone.

Now, as these sources of fertility may be found, if sought for, almost any where from the sea to Benbradagh, it is evident, that there have lain hid, in this region, inexhaustible mines of riches, utterly unknown and untouched. It is true, that the nature of this stiff soil is not adapted to receive immediate advantage from this manure; but is there not bog, gravel, and sand? Why should these languish, when the medicine is at hand?

The surface of this valley, even where it has an eddy-form shape,

often contains this red clay, and not gravel. The swelling outline is occasioned by the easy decomposition of this material, during the action of higher waters. In all the acclivities the farmer may be sure, that the surface of his field, if the soil is clay, is but the solution of those strata, which penetrate under the mountain; and which, from their calcareous nature, may become in the highest degree profitable. There are also, midway to the tops of the mountains, a kind of terraces, sometimes extending, with the range, for miles, and are, frequently, two or three hundred yards in breadth. If they lie near the lime, their fertility is great; if in fallen masses, then it depends on the nature of the superficial stratum.

An inexperienced observer would frequently be led to think, that the rocky strata lay much lower; but this is owing to the crowds of tumbled stones, which have rolled from above. For it is an invariable fact, that basalt never is found stratified, although it sometimes penetrates, beneath white lime.

Above the limestone is the region of basalt, and the soil thenceforth without clay. It is only a rust, or oxide, of the softer parts of this iron-stone. It is loose, heaves with moisture, and has neither cohesion nor strength: witness the wretched crops of every thing, but potatoes and straw. The country people significantly term it, deaf land.

But, though this soil is ungrateful to the plough, even the summits are admirable sheep-walks. I shall here make an observation, which is true so far as my experience goes. However high the situation of a basalt mountain, yet if the immediate subsoil be of that fossil, which is copiously intermixed with basalt, known to the country people by the name of rotten rock, (i. e. zeolite trapp) in this case the soil is comparatively fertile, and the herbage sweet. Thus, for example, the highest verge of Benyevenagh, 1280 feet above the sea, is greedily fed upon by sheep; and, instead of the coarse and aquatic plants, presents an elegant carpeting of shamrock, daisy, buttercup, and plantains. The same observation applies to Benbradagh in similar circumstances.

But where the subsoil is hard basalt, there we find bleak knolls, rising out of bog, deformed with sprat and heath, and all the inesculent products of the morass.

It is also a fact that, when the character of the basalt is soft, that is, where the flinty matter is in proportion less than it is found in the columnar or tabular varieties, then, the stone ochreates and exfoliates. The farmer may observe this in the stone-ditch, or rocky knoll; the appearance is, as if a flake of rusty pot-metal had been loosely fastened on the stone. This is, in fact, the process of the formation of these soils, and it will be found, that there is always a depth of receptive earth, where this process is observable. The country people think, that it is the stone, and not the soil, which is increasing.

Vale of the Mayola.

The vale of the Mayola, bounded by the descent of Sliabh-gallan to the south, has to the north, the declivities extending from Moneynieeny to Carntogher; and so far it divides basaltic promontories. Further to the west, the sources of its waters are, in the high regions of the shist mountains, connected with Sawel.

The soils near a river, which spreads its feeders through mountainous tracts, are always subject to the ravages of their torrents. Such is the case of the Mayola.

By embankments sufficiently strong, the rich levels, which are found in this valley, might doubtless be secured. As it is, they are ravaged by the change of the channel, and the spread of the waters. Bridges are carried away; the very roads are sometimes obliterated. Proceeding to the opening of this vale, near the parsonage of Ballynaschreen, the banks, for the most part, are high enough to restrain the waters; yet the soil, though most frequently fertile, is in many places barren and cold; and this too where such surfaces might not be expected.

Advancing still farther toward its opening, the swells of sand and

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gravel seem to have buried the rich loams, which might here be expected, like to those which you have left behind. These swells are intermixed with mossy bottoms and flats of ling. Of this character is the greatest part of the surface, near the parsonage of Killcronaghan. The lower these swells are, of so much the better ingredients they are composed. On the contrary, the great conic hills, which stand forth to betoken the ancient current of the Bann, in the flats of Lough Neagh, contain little or no minute substances, but consist of water-worn paving stones.* I took from their quarries specimens of basalt, flint, white limestone, shist, gneis, quartz, granular limestone, and granite both red and grey, all rolled and rounded by water, and all referable to strata not very remote.

The dells or bottoms among these great swells, are often inclined to a mossy surface; the midway tracts are light and hungry; the summits are absolutely barren.

Upon the whole, we may say, that the soils throughout the lower region are various. Rust of basalt, gravel, shiver of slate, pebble of quartz, blue clay, and moss frequently reddened by solution of iron, constitute the materials, which go to the composition of its soils. The strata, laid open by the north-eastern declivity of Sliabh-gallan, like all those which sustain the basalt, are of the same mixed character, as has been described, when treating of Magilligan, and the east of the Roe. In this district, these soils, in their nature stiff, are little inhabited, and less brought into tilth. Nevertheless they are highly improveable, improveable, being in the neighbourhood both of lime

and turf.

Above this lies the stratum of white limestone, and over this a cap of basalt.

Nearly the same may be said of the soils below the basalt mountains, on the opposite side. There is, however, no limestone on this ridge; that had vanished at the summit of Benbradagh.

* I am obliged to use common-place terms; our language is peculiarly deficient in names descriptive of the shapes and divisional contents of rocks or surfaces.

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We will take leave of this tract by marking the two passages, by which it may be entered from above, that is, from the south-west and north-west.

On the Sliabh-gallan side, the entrance into this valley from the south-west is in every respect naked, except where, in some few spots, a clump of native alders bestows an air of ornament. Descending on the side of Moneynieeney, the appearance is equally wild. As you descend by the winding of the stream, the diversified surface of the ground, with hamlets and tufts of trees, form a more agreeable landscape.

The mountains at the top, or to the east, are all shist. Those to the south-east approach to granite. The line dividing the basalt from those primitive mountains, passes under Moneynieeney, and thence across the valley, to the east of the cairns of Sliabh-gallan, and so down by Tin-teagh, to the confines of Moneymore. The soils in this interval are sandy or gravelly, and are, for a great part, the solution of the grit, which intervenes between the termination of the basalt and commencement of the other mountains.

Coast of Lough-neagh with its Flats.

If you suppose a line drawn from the northern part of Lough-beg

to the base of Sliabh-gallan, which advances on the south of the

Mayola; this line, taken with that of the shores of the lakes and the

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march of the county, will include an irregular triangle, whose area is the district we are going to describe. At another place we shall notice the high regions, which form the partition of this vale from that of the Mayola. At present we begin where the small river of Lissean, having passed the heaths, is preparing to enter on the plane. • This word is usually, yet, I should suppose, improperly, spelled "Lissane." "Lis" signifies, in Irish, the occasional residence of a chief, at the season of sports; and I take our old word "List" (a place of courtly tournament) to come from the same origin: "Ean" signifies a river. The rural residence on the stream, is accurately descriptive of this site of the fort on the rivulet. Mr. Staples has too distinguished a good taste, to take amiss the restoration of derivative orthography.

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