364 NATURAL SCIENCE [December 



quite clear that the provincial and non-official London zoologists 

 view the present committee with suspicion, as not sufficiently repre- 

 sentative of British zoology. Sir John Lubbock has succeeded Sir 

 William Flower in the presidency, and he may be trusted to prevent 

 any further irritation of the majority by a tactless disregard of its 

 manifest wishes. It is a source of the deepest regret to all British 

 zoologists that Sir William Flower himself should be compelled, by 

 need of rest, to refrain from any active part in the arrangements. 



Stratigraphical Geology 



In connection with Sir Henry Howorth's articles on Geological 

 Nomenclature which we are now publishing, attention may be 

 directed to a paper by Dr Charles E. Keyes, recently read before 

 the St Louis Academy of Sciences, and abstracted in Science for 

 October 29 (n.s., vol. vi., p. 655). Dr Keyes declares that " for more 

 than a score of years that branch of geology called stratigraphy has 

 been practically at a standstill. Its methods are the same that were 

 used fifty to seventy-five years ago." At last, however, the problems 

 of the correlation of sedimentary rocks can be attacked in a new way 

 suggested by the field-work of many American geologists. Organic 

 remains, it appears, may now be entirely omitted from consideration, 

 and the relative age of the various strata can be determined solely 

 by observing the succession of geographical changes in the various 

 large areas under comparison. These new methods, Dr Keyes 

 remarks, are more or less complex and far from simple ; but he is 

 hopeful that they will eventually lead to a really natural classifica- 

 tion of the rocks and definitely put an end to what has been aptly 

 termed ' parochial geology.' He is especially sanguine as to the 

 value of the results to be obtained from a detailed study of the 

 phenomena of mountain-formation. We cannot follow the whole 

 argument from the brief abstract ; but any advance in methods 

 which will enable us to restore the geographical features of wide 

 areas of the earth's surface at different successive geological periods 

 will not only make a new era in geological science but also contri- 

 bute most materially towards the solution of some of the perplexing 

 problems of zoology. 



The Geology of Patagonia 



This leads us to refer again to the question of the Tertiary deposits 

 of Patagonia and their remarkable mammalian fossils, discussed by 

 Dr Florentino Ameghino in our October number (p. 256). Mr J. B. 

 Hatcher, who has spent much time in studying this southern ex- 

 tremity of the American continent, now expresses the opinion that 



