160 
IN MEMORIAM : J. R. DAKYNS, M.A. 
After some further work in the west of our county, he was 
transferred in 1884 to the South-west Highlands of Scotland, 
where his field lay chiefly in the shires of Perth and Argyle. 
Ten years later he was sent to assist in the mapping of South 
Wales, and spent two years there. In 1896, he retired from the 
Survey, after a service of 34 years. 
In the course of his official work he had contributed, as part- 
author, to fourteen memoirs, nearly aU relating to Yorkshire. 
He wrote also numerous short pithy papers, always packed with 
acute observation and enlivened by a characteristic style, which 
were published in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, 
the Geological Magazine, and the Proceedings of the Yorkshire 
Geological and Polytechnic Society. A list of these papers and 
of the official memoirs has been published in " The Naturalist " 
for Nov., 1910. Those of us who know him best, however, have 
felt that his published work gave but a faint reflection of the ex- 
tent of his knowledge and attainments. This discrepancy was 
due partly to his dislike for the trouble of writing, but perhaps 
still more to the severely logical turn of his mind, which was 
never satisfied with anything short of absolute demonstration, 
even, when, from the nature of the case, the full evidence he 
desired was palpably unattainable. In Geology, as in the practical 
affairs of life, it is often only possible to strike the balance of 
probabilities ; but this was a course to which Dakyns hated to 
be driven. 
When his retirement from the Surve}^ gave him freedom of 
choice, he went with delight to dwell among the mountains of 
North Wales, for which, from the time of his early holidays, he 
had maintained a longing affection ; and there the remaining 
years of his life were spent. At first he came do^\'n occasionally 
in the winter to visit his friends on the plain, but latterly he never 
left his vaUey under the peaks of Snowdon ; and now he lies 
buried at Beddgelert, overlooked by the peaks that he loved 
so well. 
During these years in Wales he applied himself to the 
arduous task of mapping the Snowdonian massif geologically on 
the six-inch scale. A large portion of the work was accomplished, 
but it is left incomplete and unpublished. There is hope, however, 
