In Ireland I had also
opportunities of making extensive local investigations of glacial
action. I observed the centres of distribution in the neighborhood of
Belfast, in the County of Wicklow, and in Cavan.
But nowhere are these phenomena more striking than in Fermanagh County
about the neighborhood of Enniskillen, and more especially in the
immediate vicinity of Florence Court, the seat of the Earl of
Enniskillen. On the northern slope of Ben Calcagh are five valleys lying
parallel with each other and opening into the valley of Loch Nilly,
which runs from east to west at the base of the mountain. A road now
passes through this valley, and, where it crosses the mouth of either of
the five valleys rising towards the mountain-slope, it cuts alternately
through the two horns of a crescent-shaped wall which bars the lower end
of every one of them. These crescent-shaped mounds are so many terminal
moraines, built up by the five glaciers formerly descending through
these lateral valleys into the valley of Loch Nilly. They bore the same
relation to each other as the glaciers de Tour and d'Argentiere, the
Glacier des Bois with the Mer de Glace, the Glacier des Bossons and the
Glacier de Taconet, now bear to each other in the valley of Chamouni;
and were it not for the smaller dimensions of the whole, any one
familiar with the tracks of ancient glaciers might easily fancy himself
crossing the ancient moraines at the foot of the northern slope of the
range of Mont Blanc, through which the Arve has cut its channel, the
valley of Chamouni standing in the same relation to Mont Blanc as the
valley of Loch Nilly does to Ben Calcagh.
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