336 Obituary — Alexander McHenry. 



Acheulean cave-implement". In both cases the word "cave" 

 should be "core". The mistake has no doubt arisen owing to 

 a printer's error. 



J. E.KID Moir. 



Ipswich. 



May 27, 1919. 



OBITUAEY. 



ALEXANDER McHENRY, M.R.I. A. 



Boen October 24, 1843. Died April 19, 1919. 



Mr. A. McHenry was born on October 24, 1843, and died at his 

 residence in Dublin, after a very short illness, on April 19, 1919, in 

 his 76th year. His connexion with the Geological Survey of Ireland 

 dates back to his appointment as a fossil collector under J. B. Jukes 

 in 1861, and he had consequently completed forty-seven years of 

 public service on his retirement under the age-rule in 1908. His 

 last work in the field took him back to his native county of Antrim, 

 where he reported on the interbasaltic iron-ores and bauxites for 

 a memoir published in 1912. He was appointed Assistant Geologist 

 in 1877 and Geologist in 1890. 



McHenry will be always remembered as a strong and zealous 

 worker, ready to accept new views, and to test them in the elucidation 

 ■of Irish geological problems. His unfailing consideration for others 

 and his equable temper in discussion inspired the affection of his 

 colleagues, and his contentions, which were never contentious, 

 demonstrated the necessity for new researoh, even where they could 

 not be sustained in their entirety. In 1878 McHenry was charged 

 with the mapping of wild and difficult districts in Mayo, including 

 A chill Island, and then, years later, he was facing similar problems 

 in still more complicated ground among the Caledonian ridges of 

 Donegal. He was associated with other geologists in the memoirs 

 •on the Giant's Causeway area and on north-west and central Donegal, 

 and in the production of a series of maps and memoirs on districts 

 round the larger cities of Ireland, issued under Mr. G. "W. Lamplugh's 

 guidance from 1903 onwards. In this series the detailed mapping of 

 the superficial deposits was undertaken, and McHenry showed as 

 much adaptability in this new work as he had shown in the revision 

 of the Silurian strata of Ireland, or of the igneous rocks bordering on 

 the Leinster Chain. 



The discovery that graptolitic zones proved the presence of beds 

 of Llandovery or later age in many areas mapped as Lower Silurian 

 (Ordovician) led McHenry, with characteristic enthusiasm, to the 

 conclusion that very little Ordovician rock occurred in Ireland. Had 

 he been able, in his later years, to undertake independent field- 

 research, he would have critically examined some of the work that 

 he had helped to publish, and would have usefully reopened the 

 discussion of the succession of beds in the Dingle promontory, on 

 which he has left valuable notes. 



G. A. J. C. 



