260 Obituary Notices of Felloius deceased. 



Fossils." The investigations which led to the preparation of this 

 elaborate essay were undertaken at the request of Murchison, because 

 the validity of the Devonian system, in which he, together with 

 Sedgwick and Lonsdale, had taken so great a part, had been assailed 

 by J. B. Jukes. It was a serious task for one man, comparatively 

 fresh to the subject, to attempt, in the course of two or three months, 

 to unravel the complicated geology of North Devon. Mr. Etheridge, 

 although a man of great activity and indomitable energy, felt keenly 

 the difficulties before him. In the end he brought forward a copious 

 array of observations and deductions, which led him to uphold that 

 the succession of the rocks in North Devon and West Somerset was 

 unbroken and continuous ; that there was, in fact, no evidence, as 

 Jukes had maintained, of repetition by disturbance and faulting in the 

 strata. By dint of personal research, and with the assistance of local 

 geologists, he compiled a list of the entire fauna and flora then known 

 of the Devonian rocks and Old Red sandstone of Britain, showing the 

 distribution of the species on the Continent, and the range in time of 

 those which occurred in Silurian, or passed up into Carboniferous. He 

 concluded that the Devonian system was " a great life-group," and 

 " equivalent in time with, or chronologically the same as, the Old Red 

 sandstone as a whole." 



Although the subsequent researches of Dr. Henry Hicks have 

 thrown great doubt on the continuity of the series of rocks in North 

 Devon, the fact that the Devonian system constitutes " a great life- 

 group" has been confirmed by subsequent investigations. There is, 

 however, yet much to be done in determining among the rocks in this 

 country the division between Devonian and Carboniferous on the one 

 hand, and Devonian and Silurian on the other. 



In 1881 Mr. Etheridge resigned his post on the Geological Survey, 

 on being appointed Assistant Keeper in the Geological Department of 

 the British Museum. Here he laboured until 1891, when he retired 

 from the public service. 



Mr. Etheridge was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1871, and 

 afterwards served on the Council and as Vice-President. In 1880 the 

 Murchison medal of the Geological Society was awarded to him, and 

 in 1896 he received the Bolitho medal from the Royal Geological 

 Society of Cornwall. 



Throughout his scientific career he had frequently been called upon 

 to give expert advice on economic questions relating to coal, water- 

 supply, &c., and during his later years, and to within a short time of 

 his decease, he was engaged as geological adviser to the promoters of 

 the Dover Coal Exploration. He was a hard worker, ever ready to help 

 others, and esteemed by all for his single-minded, unselfish and genial 

 nature. 



