1867.] Mr. Jakes and the Geological Society. 333 



contain the essence of his papers read before the Geological Society 

 of London. The council of the latter body were probably ignorant 

 of the contents of these Irish papers, or the probability is that they 

 would have saved the cost of fifty pages of their journal. In other 

 words, Mr. Jukes's first paper would have shared the fate of his 

 second. 



The council of the Geological Society are in the habit, accord- 

 ing to Mr. Jukes, of referring papers to some Fellow, who is sup- 

 posed to have special knowledge of the subject ; and he gives an 

 instance in respect of his first paper, in which the council took the 

 opinion of two gentlemen before coming to a decision. If the 

 council act with such care and deliberation it seems that the theo- 

 retical excellence of the referee system (admitted by Mr. Jukes) 

 must be attained in practice. We have ourselves been unable to 

 discover any important new facts in Mr. Jukes's second paper, or 

 any " apparently well-founded corrections of errors as to matters of 

 feet." There is certainly propounded a new view of an admitted 

 fact ; but as it is not supported by evidence it could have been given 

 quite as well in an abstract. Moreover, it is so purely hypothetical, 

 that had it been enunciated by a young geologist, it would have 

 been considered too "manifestly childish" for argument. This 

 view may be stated as follows : — Near Wiveliscombe an east and 

 west fault was indicated long ago by Sir Henry De la Beche, 

 stretching for a distance of not more than four miles, and probably 

 less than three. Mr. Jukes's new view, unsupported by evidence, 

 is that this fault is continued for nearly thirty miles in a westerly 

 direction. 



Contributors to the ' Quarterly Journal of the Geological 

 Society' are very rarely given so ample a space as fifty pages for the 

 enunciation and illustration of their views, and therefore Mr. Jukes 

 seems a little unreasonable in complaining that considerable further 

 space was not granted for the publication of so feeble an addition to 

 his evidence as that before us. Fellows of the Society who were 

 present at the reading of this paper will remember how prevalent 

 was the opinion that its author, so far from strengthening his case 

 on that evening, had considerably damaged it, by resorting to so 

 far-fetched an expedient as that we have just noticed. 



It is also incumbent upon the council of the Society to use the 

 narrow limits of a yearly octavo volume to the best advantage, and 

 there can be no doubt that the time, thought, and trouble expended 

 on the subject by the council as a body, and individually by the 

 respective referees, have contributed in a large measure to obtaining 

 for the Society's journal the well-merited reputation which it enjoys 

 both in England and on the Continent. 



Finally, after a careful examination of the evidence, we are 

 unable to come to any other conclusions than the following : — (1) 



