Correspondence — Mr. A. R. Hunt — Mr. R. M. Deeley. 573 



THE EOCKS OF SOUTH DEVON. 

 Sir, — In Professor Bonney's unfriendly criticism of my paper on 

 the Devonian rocks of South Devon, in the October Number of the 

 Geological Magazink, I am taxed with the commission of three 

 faults among other failings, viz : — 



(1) The avoidance of certain apparently possible alternatives 

 which my critic deems of importance. 



(2) The not having studied a Devonshire problem in "other fields 

 than South Devon." 



(3) The having attempted a research with insufScient materials. 

 ]n reply to the first I may state that had I been able to discuss 



Prof. Bonney's South Devon paper, the points referred to by him 

 would have been satisfactorily disposed of; but I was unable to 

 discuss that paper for the following reason. In October, 1891, Prof. 

 Bonney volunteered to me the statement that he did not mean to 

 enter into any controversy on the subject (of the Devon schists) 

 until his shield was struck by a knight of equal experience. Under 

 the circumstances I had no option but to leave the Professor and his 

 paper alone. 



With respect to the second objection, it is evident that the affinities 

 between two sets of Devonshire rocks can only be studied in Devon- 

 shire, and not elsewhere. My subject was much more restricted 

 than my critic seems to suppose. 



Eespecting the charge of insufficiency of materials for research, 

 Prof. Bonney is scarcely in a position to find fault, seeing that he 

 dismissed the whole of the complicated Start headland with the 

 cursory observation — " Two specimens from different parts of the 

 Start headland call for no special remark " (Q.J.G.S. vol. xl. p. 15). 

 Your readers will scarcely be able to realize the significance of this 

 naive remark. 

 , SouTHwooD, ToEauAY, A. K. Hunt. 



IQth November, 1892. 



GLACIAL GEOLOGY. 



SiK, — I have read with much interest the papers by Mr. Mellard- 

 Eeade and Mr. Percy Kendall in your July and November issues. 

 On the one hand we have the submergence theory proved up to the 

 hilt, and on the other the glacier theory sustained with equal show 

 of reason. Does it not strike the combatants that they may both be 

 right and both be wrong ? For at one time during the Pleistocene 

 Period the land was certainly deeply submerged in the sea, whilst 

 at another it was with equal certainty enveloped in ice. 



There are one or two points in Mr. Kendall's paper to which I 

 should like to refer. Soon after the late Dr. Carvill Lewis came to 

 England, I had the pleasure of showing him the principal sections 

 of Boulder-clay and sand in the Trent Basin, and I think I convinced 

 him that even if there is " a commingling of the Drift " in some 

 deposits in that area, there is also an equally marked absence of com- 



