332 Mr. Jukes and the Geological Society. [July, 



tainly have been good to all but a select few, bad not a pro- 

 minent member of the council of the Society (who avowed himself 

 to be one of the referees) read to the assembled Fellows at a recent 

 meeting the first question on the printed list to which Mr. Jukes 

 has referred, as follows : — 



"Is it desirable that the paper, as it stands, should be pub- 

 lished in the ' Quarterly Journal of the Society,' as containing 

 new fads, or new views of the bearing of admitted facts, or appa- 

 rently well-founded corrections of important errors as to matters 

 of fad T 



It must be admitted that this gives the matter a different com- 

 plexion, and by the light of this information it seems fairly a ques- 

 tion whether the council were not justified in refusing to print more 

 than an abstract of the paper. Unfortunately for 3Ir. Jukes, he 

 cannot plead ignorance of the stipulations to be complied with, as he 

 owns to having two or three times acted as referee, and must there- 

 fore have had the questions addressed to him over anl over again. 

 That he did not discharge his duty more conscientiously is to be 

 regretted in every way ; had he done so, he would probably not 

 have taken umbrage at the fate of his own paper. The proper 

 course" for him to have followed as referee, if he did not approve 

 of the rules of the Society in respect to the publishing of papers, is 

 manifestly, as was observed by his commentator, to have declined to 

 act. Then, remembering his experience as referee he would pro- 

 bably not have selected the Society's journal as a medium for the 

 publication of his papers on North Devon, although he would thus 

 have deprived hinself of the innocent excitement respecting his first 

 paper, to which he acknowledges in the following paragraph : — 



'•' As regards the paper just mentioned, I must confess that it 

 was with some feeling of curiosity as to what would be done with 

 it, that I sent it to the Geological Society of London, and after it 

 was read I marked its progress through the council with some of 

 the interest and amusement one feels in watching an uncertain 

 experiment." 



It may be asked, why did Mr. Jukes feel any uncertainty as to 

 the publication of his first paper ? Fortunately, since that matter 

 was decided, the Eoyal Geological Society of Ireland have published 

 a number of their journal, or Echo would still have been compelled 

 to answer, "vVhy ? The opportune appearance of that publication a 

 few months ago has, however, solved the mystery, and to this 

 effect : — On May 10th, 1865, Mr. Jukes read a paper before that 

 Society, entitled " Xotes for a Comparison between the Eocks of 

 the South-west of Ireland and those of Xorth Devon and of Rhenish 

 Prussia (in the neighbourhood of Coblentz)/' and on December 8th, 

 1 8 65, he read another, entitled "Further Notes on the Classifica- 

 tion of the Eocks of Xorth Devon ; " ; and it appears to us that they 



