Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 26.djvu/55

Rh essay on the geology of that district, written by Mr. Jukes after his return from Newfoundland.

In the preface to the 'Excursions in Newfoundland' the author excuses the imperfection of the work on the ground that he is again leaving England. In fact, in June 1842 H.M.S. 'Fly' was despatched, under the command of the late Capt. Blackwood, to survey the Barrier reef upon the east coast of Australia, and Mr. Jukes was appointed naturalist to the ship, which did not return to England till 1846. In 1847 Mr. Jukes published his 'Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of H.M.S. 'Ely,'' in two volumes.

The 'Narrative' is well written, and gives a very vivid and accurate account of the places and people visited, if I may judge from what is said of those parts of the ground over which it was my fortune to travel a few years later. The naturalist, the geologist, and the ethnologist will find much valuable information in these volumes; and, to the student of geographical distribution, especial interest attaches to Mr. Jukes's suggestion that the different character of the molluscan faunæ of the north and south shores of Torres Straits is the result of the formation of these straits by the depression which gave rise to the formation of the Barrier reef; while the similar elements in the land faunæ of Australia and New Guinea arise from the direct connexion of these two masses of land in the time which preceded the formation of Torres Straits.

Shortly after his return to England, in 1846, Mr. Jukes received an appointment to the Geological Survey of Great Britain, then under the direction of the late Sir Henry de la Beche. He was des- patched to North Wales (where Prof. Ramsay was directing the operations of the Survey), and did excellent work in mapping the district about Bala and Conway during the summers of several years, while the winters were employed in surveying the Coal-measures of his native county.

The results of the latter work appeared among the publications of the Survey in 1853, as a 'Memoir on the Geology of the South-Staffordshire Coal-fields,' which is of very great importance, alike in its scientific and in its practical bearings. So strongly was its value in the latter direction felt by the public, that the first edition of the memoir was exhausted in a few years, and of a second revised and enlarged edition, which was published in 1858, not a copy now remains.

In 1850 Mr. Jukes was appointed Local Director of the Irish branch of the Survey, in room of Prof. Oldham, who had under- taken the direction of the Geological Survey of India. In this capacity Mr. Jukes laboured for nineteen years, with unremitting energy, and the most conscientious desire to do his duty, in a position which was full of difficulties, and involved much wear and tear of both mind and body. During this period, he edited and largely contributed to no fewer than forty-two memoirs explanatory of the geological maps of the southern, eastern, and western parts of Ireland, executed by the Survey.

In addition to these labours Mr. Jukes for many years discharged