Prof. E. Hull— Reply to Mr. Klnahan. 127 



to the comparative structure of South Ireland and North Devon, and 

 that the great unconformity shown in the centre of Mr. Kinahan's 

 woodcut (Geol. Mag. 1879, February No. p. 68, Fig. 1), represents 

 the missing Eifelian system ; missing in South Ireland, not from 

 denudation, but from having never been deposited in that region. 

 The Glengariff and Dingle Grits would therefore have been upturned 

 and denuded, and remained land or shoal water during the time that 

 the Ilfracombe-Morte Series was accumulating in a steadily subsiding 

 area, which is now North Devon and West Somerset. 



I have crossed the mountainous country from Macroom to Killarney, 

 which route affords grand sections of these massive grits, so that 

 their characters are somewhat known to me, and I know them also 

 on the Upper Lake of Killarney, and at the Gap of Dunloe. 



Taking all into consideration, the conclusions of Prof. Hull appear 

 to be in the main legitimate deductions from the facts, and not mere 

 theory. 



Dartington Hall, Totstes, Devon. 



V. — The Devonian Question : Reply to Mr. Kinahan's Note. 

 By Professor E. Hull, M.A., F.R.S., etc., etc. 



IN the Geological Magazine for February will be found a "Note 

 in Press," appended by Mr. Kinahan to his paper on the 

 " Silurian Eocks of Ireland," read some time ago before the Royal 

 Geological Society of Ireland, and which I had an opportunity of 

 hearing and replying to. On that occasion I pointed out some of 

 the numerous defects and erroneous views which this paper contains ; 

 and I could have wished that the matter had rested here, because I 

 consider it highly unbecoming that the Director of the Survey should 

 enter into a public controversy with one of his staff on points 

 connected with the geological structure of the country which has 

 been entrusted to him for elucidation. On the English and Scotch 

 Surveys such conduct is happily unknown, and however the field 

 surveyors may differ amongst themselves, and maintain their opinions 

 in print, there has always existed a sufficient feeling of respect for 

 the heads of the Survey, as well as a just consideration of the interest 

 and credit of the Survey itself, to prevent open controversies with 

 the heads of the Survey in the public prints. To this rule Mr. 

 Kinahan presents the solitary exception. I cannot take blame to 

 myself for having provoked the " Note in Press " to which I have 

 referred, because there is nothing in my paper, published in the 

 Geological Magazine, Decade II. Vol. V. 1878, p. 529, to call 

 forth the statement on the part of Mr. Kinahan that I had made 

 " various errors in reference to the Irish rocks." 



If, then, I depart from the rule I have followed for several years 

 in reference to Mr. Kinahan, of passing over his unseemly language 

 in silence, it is with the understanding that this rule will be adhered 

 to on all similar occasions, and that my silence in the future must 

 not be construed into acquiescence, either in his statements of 

 supposed facts, or his conclusions. 



