144 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
Professor Van Hise has not accepted the arrangement in use in Can- 
ada and Minnesota, but puts the Keewatin or lower Huronian in the 
Archæan, and leaves the upper Huronian and Animikie in the Algon- 
kian. He has cut the Vermilion rocks out of the unnatural associa- 
tion given them by Irving, but still retains the other error of placing 
the upper Huronian and Animikie as equivalents. How illogical 
this position is has been shown by Willmott, Lawson, and myself,* 
and it will be unnecessary to discuss the matter here. The inclusion 
of the Animikie with the Huronian rested on an error in the begin- 
ning and should not be continued by the American survey. Whether 
it will be worth while to retain the name Algonkian as representing 
the upper Huronian alone or the Animikie and Keweenawan seems 
doubtful. The latter rocks look very modern and the finding of 
fossils may at any time relegate them to the Cambrian. There seems 
no excuse for renaming so well known a group of rocks as the upper 
Huronian, which bore their present name for a generation before the 
introduction of the term Algonkian. 
As the American geologists working south and west of Lake 
Superior have at last recognized the same number of Pre-Cambrian 
formations as ourselves, with the same gaps between them, and have 
in at least one case carried their work up to the boundary where it 
connects with ours, they should do away with the confusion which 
has so long reigned and accept the Canadian nomenclature, which has 
the right of priority. 
CLASSIFICATION OF THE ARCHÆAN. 
The ground is now cleared to compare the various systems of 
classification and nomenclature of the Pre-Cambrian. The earliest 
subdivision into Laurentian and Huronian will naturally be retained, 
but with the explanation that the name Laurentian applies only to 
the Ottawa gneiss or the Fundamental gneiss, a complex of eruptives 
now mainly schistose and of later consolidation than the Huronian 
in most, if not all, regions. It is better that the Hastings and Gren- 
ville series should be separated from the Laurentian as older than the 
underlying gneisses and probably equivalent in age to part or all of 
the Keewatin and Huronian. 
A number of systems of classification have been proposed and 
may now be compared. After the great break between the upper and 


* Nomenclature of the I. Superior Formations, Willmott, Jour. Geol., Vol. 
10, No. 1, 1902, pp.68-76; The Eparchæan Interval, Lawson, Univ. Cal. Pubs., 
Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 51-62: and The Huronian Question, Coleman, Am. Geol., Vol. 
XXTX., No. 6, pp. 325-334. 
