JOSEPH BEETE

See also:

• JOSEPH BEETE JUKES (1811-1869)

JUKES (1811-1869)  , English geologist, was born at Summer Hill, near Birmingham, on the loth of October 1811 . He took his degree at Cambridge in 1836 . He began the study of geology under Sedgwick, and in 1839 was appointed geological surveyor of Newfoundland . He returned to England at the end of 184o, and in 1842 sailed as naturalist on board H.M.S . " Fly," despatched to survey Torres Strait, New Guinea, and the east coast of Australia . Jukes landed in England again in June 1846, and in August received an appointment on the geological survey of Great Britain . The district to which he was first sent was North Wales . In 1847 he commenced the survey of the South Staffordshire coal-field and continued this work during successive years after the close of field-work in Wales . The results were published in his Geology of the South Staffordshire Coal-field (1853; 2nd ed . 1859), a work remarkable for its accuracy and philosophic treatment . In 185o he accepted the post of local director of the geological survey of Ireland . The exhausting nature of this work slowly but surely wore out even his robust constitution and on the 29th of July 1869 he died .

For many years he lectured as

professor of geology, first at the Royal Dublin Society's Museum of Irish Industry, and afterwards at the Royal College of Science in Dublin . He was an admirable teacher, and his Student's Manual was the favoured textbook of British students for many years . During his residence in Ireland he wrote an article " On the Mode of Formation of some of the River-valleys in the South of Ireland " (Quarterly Journ . Geol . Soc . 1862), and in this now classic essay he first clearly sketched the origin and development of rivers . In later years he devoted much attention to the relations between the Devonian system and the Carboniferous rocks and Old Red Sandstone . Jukes wrote many papers that were printed in the London and Dublin geological journals and other periodicals . He edited, and in great measure wrote, forty-two memoirs explanatory of the maps of the south, east and west of Ireland, and prepared a geological map of Ireland on a scale of 8 m. to an inch . He was also the author of Excursions in and about Newfoundland (2 vols., 1842) ; Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of H . M . S .

" Fly" (2 vols., 1847) ; A

Sketch of the Physical Structure of Australia (185o) ; Popular Physical Geology (1853); Student's Manual of Geology (1857; 2nd ed . 1862; a later edition was revised by A . Geikie, 1872) ; the article " Geology " in the Ency . Brit . 8th ed . (1858) and School Manual of Geology (1863) . See Letters, of J . Beete Jukes, edited, with Connecting Memorial Notes, by his Sister (C . A . Browne) (1871), to which is added a chronological list of Jukes's writings .