254; Prof. Sedgwick and Mr. Murcliison on the Classification 



a moral question) to state immediately and concisely what our 

 views have been and what they now are ; in order that our 

 scientific brethren (with whom our statement cannot fail to 

 produce its proper effect,) may have it in their power to dravv 

 a just conclusion as to the part we have taken in the new clas- 

 sification of the rocks of Devonshire and Cornwall. If any 

 one should think that there is somewhat of a polemic spirit 

 either in this page or those which follow, we request him to 

 bear in mind, that the determination of the great culm trough 

 of Devon and the settlement of its true geological position, is 

 the key to the •iSihole structure of the two counties; and that no 

 one was in possession of this key, until in 1836, we offered it 

 to the British Association at Bristol. 



We pass over the circumstance alluded to in the note be- 

 low, trusting that Mr. De la Beche is incapable of insinuating 

 that which he knows to be incorrect ; and we shall conclude 

 this sketch with a short statement of facts in relation to his 

 operations and our own. We have already stated, that before 

 we entered upon an examination of Devonshire, Mr. De la 

 Beche had exhibited a map to the Geological Society which 

 he said was complete, and whiqh was afterwards on sale for 

 some months. It contained many excellent details, the result 

 of the labours of former years, and on the whole was justly 

 considered to be of great value : but it made no separation of 

 the culm-bearing or carbonaceous strata li'om the older rocks. 

 Before our visit to Devon, this author had, in fact, neither 



bonaceous recks occurring in a trough, bounded bj' the ridge of Exmoor on 

 the north, and the granite of Dartmoor and slates of Foerabury and Bos- 

 castle on the south, at the Meeting of the British Association held at Dub- 

 lin, in 1835. (Report of the Proceedings of the British Association, Oct. 

 7, 183/.)" We are compelled to give an unequivocal contradiction to 

 this statement. We were both present at Dublin when the paper alluded 

 to was read, and we took part in the short discussion by which it was fol- 

 lowed; and we assert that the author, the Rev. D. Williams, considered the 

 fossil plants he exhibited from Devonshire, as derived from the oldest grey- 

 wacke rocks of the district, and yet identical with those of the true coal-field 

 of Pembroke. He described no section, and made no allusion whatever to 

 the existence of any overlying carbonaceous trough. This assertion is per- 

 haps superfluous on our part, for we have only to appeal to all the geolo- 

 gists who were present at the Dublin Meeting, and to refer others who were 

 not there, to the abstract prepared by Professor Phillips from Mr. Williams's 

 short notice, for such it really was. An assertion of Mr. Williams, made in 

 the autumn of 1837, and which till this time we never saw, is put forth to 

 establish his pretension to a discovery said to have been announced to the 

 British Association in 1835 ; while neither the official records of the Asso- 

 ciation, nor, as far as we can learn, any journal of that year, make the 

 sliijhtest allusion to such a circumstance ! The facts speak for themselves. 

 We are the first persons who pointed out the existence of the carbonaceous 

 trough; and we never received the smallest hint of the sort from Mr. D. 

 Williams. 



