II.—Notes on the Corries of the Comeragh Mountains, Co. Waterford

Extract

The corries and tarns of the Comeragh Mountains have received but scanty attention at the hands of geologists. In the Memoir of the Geological Survey dealing with this portion of co. Waterford their position and height are mentioned, and reference is made to some of the glacial phenomena in their immediate neighbourhood, but no connected description of the whole group of corries is given. Kinahan, in his “Geology of Ireland” (1878), pp. 245, 310, refers briefly to them, and inclines to the view that they were cut out by the action of the sea on the flanks of the mountains, but that the rock-basins which they frequently contain were excavated by small glaciers. The position of the corries, chiefly on the north and east sides of these mountains, as elsewhere in Ireland, is attributed by him to the preservative action of the ice and snow, which would not melt in them so rapidly (owing to their colder aspect) as on the southern and western slopes, where the corries have been obliterated by denudation effected by ordinary subaerial agents. Carvill Lewis refers to the glaciation of the Comeragh Mountains in several places, remarking that they “show signs of glaciation on their north-east side as high as 1,000 feet, up to which height they are rounded off and drift occurs. Above this they are jagged and contain cwms, glacial lakes, and other evidences of small local glaciers.”