FOREIGN WORK AMONGST THE OLDER ROCKS, n 



migrate to every station they could occupy, and in every 

 case the temporary and local climate must be indicated by 

 the local flora, while the succession in any one place may be 

 relied on as holding good over a very extensive area". 

 Geologists may be congratulated on having the length of 

 geological periods insisted on by so eminent a writer in 

 connection with this very question, for the reluctance of 

 men of science to accept the contemporaneity of wide- 

 spread deposits is undoubtedly due to their inability to 

 grasp the idea of geological time as indicated by geological 

 data, and the tendency to take their time from the astrono- 

 mer and physicist. When premature attempts to speak of 

 geological time in terms ot thousands or millions of years 

 are abandoned, so much the better for the science. 



In noticing the work done amongst the older rocks 

 abroad, it will be convenient as before to take them in 

 order of antiquity, beginning with the oldest, but, before 

 doing this, attention must be called to certain works treating 

 of deposits of many ages, or bearing upon general ques- 

 tions. As I had occasion in a former article to write at 

 some length upon the discoveries recently made amongst 

 the older rocks of India, it is only necessary to mention that 

 a full account of the older as well as the newer rocks of 

 India appears in the new edition of the Geology of India 

 (2), which was received in this country in 1894. The 

 editor devotes a chapter (chap, viii.) to the vexed question 

 of the age of the Gondwana- series, and is able to compare 

 the beds of India with those of Africa and Australia. 



An interesting paper by M. Marcel Bertrand (3) treats 

 of the Palaeozoic and Tertiary synclinal folds affecting the 

 French rocks. This author announced about two years 

 ago the existence of two fundamental laws of the deforma- 

 tion of the earth's crust. First, that the foldings always 

 follow the same lines ; and second, that these lines, how- 

 ever varied, form on the whole a riofht-antrled network of 

 parallels and meridians. In the present paper he supports 

 these laws by reference to a geological map of France, 

 showing the trend of the Palaeozoic and Tertiary synclinal 

 axes. He also discusses the relation of the distribution and 



