where they are still less likely to be seen, | ible upon every scratched stone and cragthough any one who will take the trouble rounded hillside within an area of sixty of clambering up in search of them will miles. Why it should have spread here find that few things are more beautiful in is, however, at first by no means obvious. their way than these little desolate tarns, On the contrary, it would at first sight set about with huge rocks, yet so clear seem more likely that from the higher and that every modulation of the skies may be on the whole bulkier mass of Mweelrea seen reflected on their surface. Most and its brother peaks would have come striking of these, perhaps, are the so- that impetus which has thus stamped itcalled "corries bowl-shaped hollows, self upon all the country round. But no usually flat-bottomed, and cut out of the they have been swept across by ice solid rock. Often a whole series of these coming from this direction. This has may be seen lying parallel to one another been very well and clearly shown in an upon the vertical sides of precipices; the admirable little memoir on the subject effect from below being very much as if published some years since by Messrs. so many mouthfuls had been bitten out of Close and Kinahan.* "The ice stream," the cliff. Some of these corries contain say these authors, "has passed on and water; others again are dry. When full moved, not only against Croagh Patrick, they are usually partly formed of drift, but farther northward against the range which, accumulating at the mouth of the of the Erris and Tyrawley mountains. hollow, hinders the water from escaping. Although partly forced out of its way by As to their origin, geologists differ not a them, it has nevertheless streamed across little, some maintaining that they are due them certainly through their passes, to direct ice action, and chiefly for the e.g. that of Coolnabinnia on the west side following reasons: first, that they differ of Nephin (as shown by the striations on entirely from hollows made by any other the summit of Tristia, nearly eleven hunagencies; secondly, that nothing in the dred feet above the sea), that of Lough least resembling them is now being Feeagh (witness the striations on the side formed by the sea; and, thirdly, that they of Buckoogh at twelve hundred feet), and cannot possibly be due to the ordinary that of Ballacragher Bay near Molranny meteoric agents- rain, snow, wind, run- | (as evidenced by the striations in Corraun ning water, etc. since these very agents are at present busily engaged in smoothing them away. Others, equally entitled to our confidence, maintain, first, that other agents besides ice are perfectly As to the further question of why this capable of making similar hollows; sec- and not the Mweelrea range should have ondly, that the sea is at this very moment been selected for the honor of being the engaged in scooping out small coves and local "birthplace of glaciers," that is becooses, which, if raised in a general eleva-lieved to be due, partly to the fact that, tion of the land, would in time present an appearance very similar to these hill corries, such as we now see them; and thirdly, that the original cause, or at any rate the chief agent, must have been, not ice, but faults and dislocations in the rock, aided subsequently by glacial or marine action. Where experts differ to such an extent, how, it may be asked, is the humble inquirer to steer his modest course?

Achill on the north-west side of Clew Bay); in all these cases the movement of the red-sandstone blocks corroborates the evidence of the striations."

though less high, these Bennabeolas form on the whole a more compact mass than the Mayo group; but still more to the circumstance of the latter having been robbed of their full share of snow by the former, which, stretching further to the south-west, then as now were the first to intercept the moisture-laden winds of the Atlantic. Instead, however, of curdling into cloud and discharging themselves in But we are not dependent upon rock sheets of rain as they do at present, their corries for our evidence of ice action in burden was then flung down in the form this neighborhood; we meet it in ten of snow, which, hardening and consolithousand different forms. In fact there dating into ice, rapidly accumulated in the is probably no district in Great Britain valleys, heaped itself up over every hill. where its sign-manual has been written inside, in many instances burying the very plainer or more legible characters. In summits themselves under what was prac this respect our Bennabeola range is of tically a huge superimposed mountain of special interest, as from it, rather than solid ice. from either of the neighboring and rival ranges, is held to have spread that great ice-sheet whose effects are so plainly vis

G. H. Kinahan, M.R.I.A., and Rev. Maxwell H.
Glaciation of Tar-Connaught and its Neighborhood.
Close.

Meanwhile we must not expend the whole of the time at our disposal upon one mountain summit, but must hasten away to other though not perhaps necessarily more attractive scenes.

Though often spoken of as a glacier, | must have risen high above their heads, this, it must always be remembered, is as its handiwork can be seen written not what in Switzerland and elsewhere is upon the crags at the summit; though understood by a glacier at all. In pictur- how many feet or hundreds of feet higher, ing to ourselves the state of things which it would doubtless puzzle even the best must once have existed in these islands, and most experienced of geologists to we are too apt to draw all our ideas and decide. illustrations from these Swiss Alps-the only perpetually snow-clad region with which most of us have any practical acquaintance. Now nothing can be more misleading. In Switzerland the glaciers only exist down to a certain well-defined line, where, being met by the warm air of the valleys, they pass away in the milky torrents, familiar to any one who has stood, for instance, beside the Rhone, and seen it pour its white volumes into the Lake of Geneva, where, leaving behind it all the heavier and more insoluble part of its burden, it issues gaily upon the further side, the bluest of blue rivers leaping to the sea. Here, however, a very different order of things from this existed. The ice which has scraped and planed these hillsides was not in fact a glacier at all. No puny glacier, such as hills of this height could alone have given birth to, would ever have reached a tithe of the distance covered by this mighty stream, one arm of which alone has been traced the whole way up the valley of Lough Mask, and out at Killala Bay, a distance of over sixty miles; while how much further it went no human being of course can tell, all further traces of it being henceforth hidden by the sea. To find a region where ice is now really moulding and fashioning the landscape, as it once moulded and fashioned these Galway valleys and hillsides, we must go, not to Switzerland or to any temperate region at all, but to a very much less comfortable part of the world - to Greenland and the icy shores of Baffin's Bay. There, in the grim and gruesome regions of the "central silence," few, if any, of the phenomena familiar to us in Switzerland are to be seen; no tall peaks rising out of green, laughing valleys; no glaciers with their wrinkled ice-falls, their blue crevices, and their brown moraines; everything, save a few here and there of the highest summits, being hidden away under a huge, all-encompassing deathshroud of snow and ice, from which all life, and nearly all movement, have vanished. So, too, it must once have been with our Twelve Pins, and with all the region round about. They too have known what it is to be smothered up in ice and snow; ice which in this instance

I just now said that Iar-Connaught was a land of lakes; but, if so, it is even more emphatically a land of streams. Go where we will, our ears are filled with the noise of running water. Streams drop upon us from the rocks, dash across the road under our feet, and appear unexpectedly in all directions. Many, too, of the lakes are united to one another by streams strung together, as it were, upon a thin, silvery thread of water. Not many, certainly, of these streams attain to any very great volume, but what they lack in size they more than make up for by their multitude. Larger ones, such as the Erriff and Joyce's River, are fed by an infinite number of small rivulets, which come racing down the hillsides from a thousand invisible sources, and after prolonged rains the hills appear literally streaked with white, so closely do the torrents lie together. Where smaller streams find their own way to the sea, their course is often impeded and almost obstructed by the mass of stones and detritus which they have themselves brought down from the hills. Walking up one of these stream-sides, one is often fairly astounded at the size and the number of these blocks. Boulders, varying from the size of a hencoop to that of a comfortable-sized cottage, strew the bed of the stream, witnesses of a thousand forgotten storms. In the wider portions these get often piled up into small rocky islands, where sods of peat lodge, and where the young birch and mountain ash spring up safe from the tooth of marauding sheep or goats. It is in the narrower portions, however, where the stream has had to saw a channel for itself through the hard face of the rock, that the boulders become jammed and accumulate to such an extraordinary degree, often filling the narrow channel to the very brim, and obliging the water to escape, as best it can, in a series of small gushes and separate torrents, which meet again in a tumultuous rush below the obstruction. No one can wander much over this district without coming to the con

clusion that these streams are very much | ders lifting their grey sides out of the smaller most of them now than they once purple heather, while in one direction, were. Several facts point to this conclu- perhaps, and in one direction only, a cotsion. Even after the heaviest rains their tage, or a couple of cottages, scarcely present carrying power is certainly insuf-less grey and time-worn, may be seen ficient to enable them to transport the peering disconsolately over the little hills. enormous blocks with which we find their course encumbered; added to which the channels themselves are often much larger than are at present needed, and in some instances, as along the course of the Erriff River, are being actually now filled up with bog. Indeed, when we remember how lately the whole of this district was one great forest, traces - melancholy traces — of which are to be seen | in every direction; when we come upon stumps of oak high up upon the bleak hillsides, where now nothing taller than the bilberry or the bog myrtle grows; when, on the other hand, pushing out from the shore, we look over our boat-side and see the big "corkers " rising up out of the marl and sand in which their roots lie buried seeing all this, and remembering how invariably the destruction of forests is followed by a diminution of rainfall, it is not difficult to believe that, numerous as are these streams and rivers now, they were once more numerous, and certainly very much larger than they are at present.

North of Galway Bay the country is comparatively flat, and there the rivers run chiefly between low ridges or hills of drift, whose sides are thickly strewn with the omnipresent granite boulders which there form such a prominent feature in the landscape. Much of this district is uninteresting and monotonous enough, yet even here the scenery along the river edge is often full of interest and beauty. As often as the stream takes a bend, a little triangular patch of intensely fertile ground accumulates upon the convex side, where the river year by year has deposited a share of the spoil which it has elsewhere filched. These little fertile plots are taken advantage of, and respectable crops of oats and potatoes grown right up to the brink of the water, which is only too apt to overflow and destroy them when a freshet comes down from the hills. Here too, for the same reason, grow the loosestrifes and meadow-sweets, not scattered as elsewhere, but in a dense, variegated jungle, which is repeated, leaf for leaf and petal for petal, in the smooth, brown currents below. Nowadays the region is but a very thinly populated one. Looking around us, we see in every direction rows upon rows of granite boul

As for trees, often for long distances the stunted, much-enduring thorn-bushes are the only representatives of these to be seen; then a corner is turned, and suddenly, out of the wild, melancholy moor, the stream rushes all at once into a tiny glen or valley green with brushwood, and gay with osmunda and bell heather and half-submerged willow-herbs a genuine scrap of the old forest, where the gnarled oak stumps have sent up young shoots, and where the birch and willow and mountain ash dip downward so as almost to touch the water; then another turn, and the glen is left behind, and we are out once more in the open moor. No better way of getting to know this country can be devised than by following the vagrant course of one of these streams from its source to its finish, though it must be owned that the walking is far from invariably delightful. Where footpaths, with stiles or holes in the walls, have been left for the benefit of fishermen, there matters, of course, are simplified; this, however, is quite the exception. Generally the explorer has to make his own way over the tottering, lace work walls, whose stones have a most uncomfortable predisposition to fall upon his toes. When there are bridges, which is seldom, they usually consist of a few logs, supported and covered over with huge stones in a primitive and Cyclopean fashion. On smaller streams the bridges are of loose stones only, the central arch being flanked right and left with lesser ones, so as to allow the water in flood-time to escape. More often still there are no bridges at all, or only at intervals so wide as to be practically useless; he is forced, therefore, to find out his own crossing, choosing between stumping bodily through the stream, or picking his steps along the slimy tops of the stones, where the water rushes and races under his feet at the rate of some forty miles an hour, or slips by in those long, oily curves which always seem to draw our eyes down to them whether we will or no. Nor is this the only or even the chief part of his difficulties. What with crossing and re-crossing the stream; now skirting along where the projecting rocks nearly push him into the water; now out again into the open, clambering over huge boulders crouched like

one ex.

the loafing

petrified dragons or mammoths in his climb. Armed with a gaff path; now picking his steps through temporized out of a scythe squelching bog-holes, or, again, balancing "gossoon or village ne'er-do-weel may upon tussocks which give way under his pick and choose amongst a crowd of saltread what with all this, and the end- inon and white trout, and the silvery less climbing of walls, the explorer who scales which catch the eye here and there has conscientiously followed one of these amongst the wet grass are a proof only streams through all its windings and too convincing that he has not neglected doublings will find that he has about had his opportunities. his full share, and something more than his fair share, of walking by the time he again reaches home. In wild weather, when the wind is from the Atlantic, gales blow straight up these glens, cutting the tops off the small waves as they come careering over the stones, and apparently doing their best to drive the water upstream again. A salmon leap is a fine sight on such a day as that. The water, no longer a series of insignificant trickles, comes down in a broad yellow gush, sending out great flakes of foam before it, to be carried back by the wind and lodged in creamy clots upon the trees and upon every scrap of herbage within reach. On such days, the whole glen above the fall may often be seen through a sheet of finely divided spray, caught from the fall and flung backwards by the wind. Standing above the leap, and looking down, we may see the big salmon and white trout crowding in the pool below us, their heads held well up-stream, despite the tug of the current in the opposite direction. Now and then one detaches himself from the rest, leaps upward, quivers a moment in mid-air, and then, in nine cases out of ten, falls headlong down into the pool again. The height to which both salmon and white trout will spring on these falls is astonishing, a leap of eight and ten feet being by no means unusual; and, however often defeated, after a few moments' rest the same salmon may be seen returning again and again to the assault. When thus intent upon business the fish seem to lose all their natural shyness, as if every faculty was for the moment concentrated wholly in the effort to reach the upper waters. Leaning over the rocks alongside of the salmon leap, we may stoop so as to actually touch with a stick the smooth, brown backs so temptingly near at hand, and we shall find that they take little or no notice, merely moving to one side, without for a moment relaxing in their efforts to reach the top a trait which unfortunately has the effect of making them fall only too easy a prey to the local poacher. No art of any sort is required to spear a salmon when, spent and exhausted, it reaches the top of its

Throughout the whole of this part of Iar-Connaught the presence of the granite largely influences the character of the landscape. Where limestone predominates we usually get peculiarly transparent effects, delicate aërial greys and blues everywhere prevailing. On the other hand, limestone is cold, and even when weathered the rocks seldom present any particular beauty of detail. Granite, on the contrary, lends itself peculiarly to richness of coloring, no foreground being so rich as a foreground of granite rocks. Here, too, the granite has an especial beauty of its own, from the presence of large pink or violet crystals of feldspar, which in weathered places frequently stand out in bold relief, as though handfuls of pale amethysts had been sprinkled loosely over the surface. Lichens, too, of a peculiar brilliancy and beauty cling to the granite, so that whatever else is wanting to the picture we may always count upon a foreground of ever-varying beauty and interest. A few of these boulders might nevertheless be spared with advantage! The multitude strewn broadcast over the whole face of the country here is almost past belief, and increases perceptibly as we approach the sea — here cropping up in the middle of a potato-patch - there built into the sides of a cabin now raised on stalks showing the amount of wear and tear which has gone on since they took their place — now sunk deep in the ground with only a corner appearing above the brown turf mould. Many show signs of having fallen from a height, lying broken as they fell, not flung about in fragments, but seamed through and through with a single crack, which has been further prized open by small stones falling in at the top and gradually working their way to the bottom; others again stand perched high overhead, or balanced upon the very brink of a cliff, as though ready to be launched upon some aërial voyage. Foreign rocks, quartzes, sandstones, and mica schists, coming from the other side of the country, mingle occasionally with the granite, all contrasting strongly, in their rough-hewn masses, with the smooth, glacier-ground

rocks upon which they rest, and which | moorland again. It were worth spending are as smooth and as polished still as if a few weeks in Iar-Connaught, if only to the great ice-plane had only left them learn to appreciate trees for the future! yesterday. Still on and on, and on, mile after mile, Now that we are approaching the coast over a treeless, almost featureless tract, we find that our stream widens. Strength-abounding in stones and abounding in ened by a couple of contributions, it has very little else. A police barrack, green swollen well-nigh to the proportions of a with ivy, up which some dog-roses are river. No longer champing and churn- creeping, is greeted with enthusiasm. ing, fretting against every stone in its So, too, are a couple of villas, through bed, it rolls silently, conscious that at last whose gates we catch a pleasant vista of it is nearing its destiny. Now fast and haycocks, and children playing, with the fleet, but with hardly a sound, it swirls rocks and the tumbled surf beyond. along under the tottering banks, raking Turning away from this somewhat laout the loose stones and water-weeds; mentable foreground, we fix our eyes upon now widening into a mimic lake, and then the range of terraced hills which stretch again narrowing as it rushes between two beyond the bay, and further yet again to steeply overhanging rocks. The last where a line worn by distance to a mere corner is turned. The grey hills of Clare thread-shows where the far-famed cliffs rise over the parapet of the little bridge; of Moher lift their six hundred feet of between them and us flash the waters of rock above the sea. Westward again, the bay, with perhaps a solitary "pook- the three isles of Aran stream across the haun or "hooker" working upon their horizon, so low and grey as hardly to be way to Galway; under the bridge darts visible, save where the surf catches the stream, and with a flash and a ripple, against their rock-girt sides; yet, looking and a quick noisy rattle over the stones, intently, we can, even at this distance, it has taken its last leap, and flung itself distinguish the huge outline of Dun Conrejoicing into the arms of the sea. nor, the great rath which crowns the midFrom the hills we have wandered to the dle island, and whose watch-fires when rivers; from the rivers let us now glance lighted must have been visible along the for a few minutes along the shore. Leav- entire line of coast from the Mayo hills to ing Galway with its fringe of villas and of the mountains of Kerry. About Spidal bathing-houses behind us, the road runs the scenery begins to improve. Far in westward for many a mile, along a low the distance the Twelve Pins once more coast, varied only by an occasional ridge come into sight, long chains of lakes or "esker" of granite drift. The shore stretching northward to their very feet. itself mainly consists of loosely piled Near Tully the coast is broken up into boulders, alternating with small sandy sinall brown creeks, where turf is being bays; the most unprofitable of all shores, dug at low tide; islands dot themselves by the way, for the marine zoologist, about in the bay beyond; a substantialwhose game is apt to be uprooted with looking row of coastguard houses presevery tide. Here and there, however, ently rises into sight, with chimneys long reefs project seaward, and these hospitably smoking; yet another halfbeing seamed with fissures are worth ex-mile, and we find ourselves brought up ploring when they can be reached, which generally is only at the dead low tide. As we advance we find ourselves passing over an endless succession of low drift-hills with intervening valleys choked with one of the many to be found in Iarboulders, the road keeping steadily west, Connaught. Only one road of any kind the country growing wilder and wilder extends beyond this point, and that with every mile. At Barna a small grove merely lands us at a fishing-lodge some of trees is passed, with grass and ferns three miles or so further on. To reach growing rich and rank beneath their the mountains which we see so distinctly shadow. The trees themselves are noth- before us, we must either retrace our steps ing very particular, -a few moderate-to Spidal, and so round by Oughterard, a sized oaks, with ash, and a sprinkling of sycamores, and elsewhere doubtless pass them without a glance; here, however, we turn to look at them again and again with an interest quite pathetic, sighing regret fully as we pass out into the grey desolate

short by the discovery that our road ends abruptly, all further advance in this direc tion being hopelessly at an end. We have in fact arrived at a regular cul-de-sac

distance of over forty miles, or else take to the moors, and try to make our own way across country, an attempt which would probably result in our having to crave hospitality for the night at some cabin door, the chances of reaching any