TOPOGR krnlY. On the east, along the waters of the Irish Sea and Saint George's Channel, which separate Ireland from England and Wales, the coast is comparatively straight for long stretches, and has few deep indentations. (in the west, however, where the coast is exposed to the gales of the Atlantic. the sea penetrates far into the land through long. deep valleys. These valleys arc true fiords like those of the west coasts of Scotland and Norway, and. as in those countries, at the entrance to the inlets and all along the coast there are hundreds of little isl ands that were torn from the mainland mass by ocean storms and other destructive influences. The northwestern edge of Europe, therefore, has the same general characteristics from Bantry Bay, at the southwest corner of Ireland, to the North Cape. far north of the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia. The chief ports of Ireland are Belfast. Dublin, Waterford, Cork, and London derry. The west-eoast ports are of little im portance except in the coasting trade.
In its general surface Ireland may be de scribed as basin - shaped. A traveler sailing along the coast waters might get the idea that Ireland is very mountainous. As he nears the coast from Holyhead—the common route from England to Dublin—lie sees the blue line of the Wieklow Mountains rising 2000 feet above the sea. The details come into view as he ap proaches Dublin. He sees the rounded bosses of Killiney and the grim promontories of Howth and Bray, which are only the outliers of the high granite moorlands that stretch away for 70 miles to the south. Farther north, between Dundalk and Dundrum bays, he sees a still more rugged and picturesque coast, with the huge domes of the Mourne Mountains rising above it: and then at Belfast come into view the long, black scarps, terraced and uninviting, which form the edges of the high plateau behind them.
Rounding the north coast, he sees along the At lantic shore, of Donegal and Mayo great walls of rock. 2000 feet high in places, the finest cliffs in the British Isles; and down the west coast are the rugged heights of Connaught, the high limestone terrace, of northern Clare, and, far ther south, range after range extends along the shores till they culminate in the gray masses that look down on Bantry Bay. The highest peak is Carrantuo IIill (Carran Tual). near the picturesque Lakes of Killarney, which has an elevation of 3.414 feet above the sea. The in terior of the northern portion of the country, from the latitude of Belfast, is partly broken and mountainous. The same is true of the southern part of the island a little south of the latitude of Dublin.
I:to:Idly speaking, therefore. the highlands of Ireland are masked upon its margin. The central area is a wide depression, in which numerous bogs and lakes have formed. When the traveler crosses Ireland, from Dublin to Galway (115 miles), for example, he meets scarcely a hill on the way. He may travel over large parts of the central regions and feel himself on a great plain above which hills or ranges of elevated surface rise here and there, though they are quite in significant in comparison with the wide expanse of brown bog or level meadow land.