Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 3.djvu/158



The colour of this sandstone is reddish or greyish; its texture is either conglomerate, including fragments of greywacke slate, or finely granular, composed of quartzose grains imbedded in a cement, sometimes calcareous and sometimes siliceous. The greenstone which caps this hill differs very slightly from that associated with the floetz trap.

Lord Londonderry has caused this formation to be bored to the depth of 500 feet in the fruitless search for coal on the east side of Strangford lough near Mount Stewart; if to this depth the height of the sandstone on Scabro hill be added, it will give from 800 to 900 feet as the known thickness of this formation. The greatest length of this district of sandstone does not exceed six or seven English miles. it appears to rest upon greywacke.

The tract of this formation between the bays of Cushendall and Cushendon, is yet more limited than the preceding. On the coast it occupies a line of between three and four English miles, and extends about the same distance in an inland direction. The highest point of the cliffs on the coast in this range is only 124 feet; but the hill of which they form the escarpment rises at Jeaveragh near Cushendall church to the height of 522 feet: this is the greatest elevation which the sandstone of this district attains.

The strata dip into the sea towards the E.S.E. under an angle of about 32°. In the bay of Cushendon several caverns of considerable magnitude occur in this rock.

The general character of this formation is that of a conglomerate; it passes however into a coarsely granular texture, and in one place (the Red bay of Cushendall) into a finely granular: its colours vary from red to grey.