284 NATURAL SCIENCE. November, 



palaeontology." It is the class of work that is turned out by these 

 estimable and energetic people that has for so many years brought 

 disrepute upon palaeontology, with which, unfortunately, it became 

 confused in the minds of zoologists. Sometimes, of course, these 

 worthy folk have the wit to recognise their own ignorance, and by 

 taking counsel with one friend after another have been able to produce 

 compilations, the value of which, if not great, has at any rate been 

 slightly increased. This, however, is unsatisfactory for science, and 

 not altogether fair to the friends in question. Would it not be better 

 if these would-be universal geniuses placed the whole work of 

 zoological investigation in the hands of the zoological specialists ? 

 After they had done this, they need not complain that their occupation 

 was gone, for there would still be much for them to do in the other 

 division of palaeontology to which we have alluded. They could still 

 collect with care, still determine horizons and study associations of 

 fossils, and, if they wished to compare the fauna existing at one 

 horizon in one country with that existing at another horizon, or in 

 another country, they would be able to do so with far better results, 

 since the materials for discussion would no longer be incorrect 

 determinations and imperfect descriptions, but the carefully elaborated 

 conclusions of many highly-trained specialists. 



A Plea for Detail "in Stratigraphy. 



The preceding notes had been written before Mr. J. E. Marr 

 delivered his address to the Geological Section of the British Associa- 

 tion, and we were delighted to find similar views forcibly urged by so 

 recognised an authority. Mr. Marr occupied the main part of his 

 address " with reasons for the need of conducting stratigraphical 

 work with minute accuracy." He did well, for there are in this 

 country many people, professing to speak as geologists and palaeont- 

 ologists, who still pooh-pooh the detailed investigation of fossils and 

 the correlation of minute subdivisions of stratified systems with one 

 another. They say that in such work we lose sight of broad 

 generalisations, that correlation is absurd when species must have 

 taken time to migrate, that the field-geologist really cannot map so 

 trivial a thing as a "zone," much less a "hemera," that the poor 

 student is getting so puzzled he cannot pass his examinations. The 

 absurdity of such protests was temperately yet thoroughly exposed 

 by Mr. Marr. It was the minute palaeontological investigation of 

 strata that unlocked the secret of the Highlands and inaugurated a 

 new era in physical and dynamic geology ; microscopic examination 

 of sediments, coupled with accurate zoological knowledge, has thrown 

 brighter light on the problem of the permanence of oceans than all 

 the speculations of the physicist, whose " imposing superstructure 

 of mathematical reasoning " is " often founded upon very imperfect 

 data " ; the history of volcanic action, the reconstruction of former 



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