192 Correspondence — Prof. Edward Hull. 



THE DEVONIAN QUESTION. 

 Sir. — It is with much pleasure I have read Mr. Charopernowne's 

 communication on " The Devonian Question " (Geol. Magazine, 

 March, p. 125). Knowing how sedulously he has been studying' 

 the Devonshire rocks for some years past, I regard his opinion as of 

 great value ; and, therefore, when I find it to he confirmatory of the 

 views I ventured to suggest, I am strengthened in the belief that 

 they are (to use Mr. Champemowne's own words) " in the main 

 legitimate deductions from the facts, and not mere theory." The 

 evidence which Mr. Champernowne has adduced of the Silurian 

 affinities of the Foreland Sandstones is of much importance at the 

 present time — because it bears by a reflex process of reasoning on 

 the question of the age of the supposed representative beds — those 

 of the Glengarriff and Dingle series in the South of Ireland ; a 

 question which is still sub judice. 



As regards the suggested unconformity at the base of the Pickwell 

 Down Sandstone, it is in no way necessary to my argument ; and 

 I am quite content to abandon the idea on the statements of two of 

 my friendly critics. But I would suggest to Mr. Champernowne, 

 in reference to the difficulty he feels regarding the S. Wales district 

 (Professor Geikie's "Welsh Lake"), whether there may not be a 

 break between the " Pebbly beds and Conglomerate " and the 

 " Cornstone " series, etc., of Monmouthshire ("Siluria," 4th edit. 

 p. 245), the former of which I cannot but regard as the equivalent 

 of the Pickwell Down Sandstone. 



As Mr. Champernowne has anticipated my reply to Mr. Hall and 

 Mr. Ussher (though probably the latter has by this time discovered 

 that he had entirely misunderstood the purport of my paper), it is 

 scarcely necessary that I should add anything to his statements. I 

 will, therefore, only ask him in conclusion to weigh the evidence I 

 have adduced in the same number of the Geological Magazine, 

 p. 129, for believing that the Red Sandstone and Conglomerate of 

 the South of Ireland, which passes up into Griffith's " Yellow 

 Sandstone," is really the representative of the true " Old Eed 

 Sandstone " of other districts, and not merely the base of the Car- 

 boniferous Series. Edward Hull. 

 Dublin, 10th March, 1879. 



MISCELIjAlirEOTJS. 



Fossils from the Diamond Fields, South Africa. — Mr. George J. Lee, of 

 Kimberly, Griqua-krjd West, has forwarded, through His Excellency Colonel 

 Lanyon, the Governor of the Colony, to Sir Joseph D. Hooker, C.B., for presenta- 

 tion to the British Museum, part of a carbonized 1 branch of a Coniferous tree 

 (found 195 feet below the 'surface in Claim 196) ; a fragment of a fossil fish 

 (Palceoniscus) of Triassic age ; and four casts of portions of the vertebral columns 

 and ribs, and a foot of small Dicynodont reptiles, preserved as hollow moulds, in 

 finely laminated and friable shale. Also numerous pyritised bodies, possibly replacing 

 some organism. The Beptilian remains have been submitted to Prof. Owen, C.B., 

 who will notice them more fully hereafter. The fossil wood will be examined by 

 Mr. W. Carruthers, F.E.S. 



1 Resembling charcoal in its mineral condition. 



