﻿7ol. 64.] ANNIVERSAKY ADDKESS OF THE PRESIDENT. Ixxxi 



and in the Proceedings. To a much more recent date belong 

 the communications of Jukes, which at the time aroused so much 

 discussion as to give rise to what has been called ' the Devonian 

 question.' His first paper on the subject was printed in the 

 Quarter]}^ Journal of 1866. A second communication, refused by 

 the Societ}^, was printed privately by the author. His main con- 

 tention was that, with the exception of the sandstones and grits of 

 Pickwell Down and the Worth Foreland, which he grouped with the 

 Old Eed Sandstone, the Devonian rocks are the equivalent in time 

 of the Carboniferous Slate and Limestone of the South of Ireland. 

 A view so opposed to the established and orthodox opinion could 

 hardly be allowed to go without reply. At Murchison's request 

 Etheridge went down into Devonshire, spent some time there in 

 traversing the various sections, and as the result of his labours 

 presented to the Society the elaborate memoir which appeared in 

 the 23rd volume of the Quarterly Journal. He therein maintained 

 the distinctive palseontological value of the Devonian fossils, and 

 the controversy was thereafter allowed to die out. Later volumes 

 of the Journal have contained papers on Devonian subjects by 

 T. M. Hall,^ Champernowne,^ Hicks,'' Ussher,^ and other writers, 

 but it can hardly be said that the peculiarly complicated structure 

 of the south-western counties and the detailed stratigraphical 

 relations of the different rock-groups of that region have even yet 

 been wholly unravelled. 



The Carboniferous System of this country, as was to be expected 

 in the case of rocks so full of interest and so well developed here, 

 has been the subject of many communications to the Society. 

 Although each may have had its value in adding more or less to the 

 general knowledge of the subject, they do not include in their 

 number any one of such original and cardinal importance in general 

 geology as the great Devonian paper to which reference has just 

 been made.^ In the early decades of last century the origin of coal 

 was still a matter of dispute. It was by no means universally 



1 Q. J. xxiii (1867) 371. 



2 Q. J. XXXV (1879) 67, 532 ; xl (1884) 497 ; xlv (1889) 369. 



3 Q. J. Hi (1896) 254 & hii (1897) 438. 



4 Q. J. XXXV (1879) 532 & xlvi (1890) 487. 



5 The general characters and distribution of the Carboniferous System were 

 so excellently depicted in the classic ' Outlines ' of Conybeare & Phillips that 

 it seems surprising that the sketch of the subject given by these authors was not 

 sooner followed up by a detailed study of the several formations and districts 

 which they described. 



