1896. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 285 



geographies, the explanation of the present contours of the earth, 

 all these are elucidated by, indeed are impossible without, the most 

 careful work of the stratigrapher. As for the influence that this 

 kind of work has on our knowledge of ancient life, we need not 

 repeat what we have already said ; but the following passage 

 expresses so forcibly a truth for which we are always contending 

 that we quote it as fully as our space permits : — 



"The importance of detailed observation in the field is becoming 

 every day more apparent, and the specialist who remains in his 

 museum examining the collections amassed by the labours of others, 

 and never notes the mode of occurrence of fossils in the strata, 

 will perhaps soon be extinct himself ... In the first place, 

 such a worker can never grasp the true significance of the changes 

 wrought on fossil relics after they have become entombed in the 

 strata, especially amongst those rocks which have been subjected 

 to profound earth-movements ; and it is to be feared that many 

 ' species ' are still retained in our fossil lists whose supposed specific 

 characters are due to distortion by pressure. But a point of greater 

 importance is that one who confines his attention to museums cannot, 

 unless the information supplied to him be very full, distinguish the 

 differences between fossils which are variations from a contemporaneous 

 dominant form, such as ' sports,' and those which have been termed 

 ' mutations,' which existed at a later period than the forms which 

 they resemble. The value of the latter, to those who are attempting 

 to work out phylogenies is obvious, and their nature can only be 

 determined as the result of very laborious and accurate field work ; 

 but such labour in such a cause is well worth performing. The 

 student of phylogeny has had sufficient warning of the dangers which 

 beset his path, from an inspection of the various phylogenetic 

 trees, constructed mainly after study of existing beings only . . . 

 but recent researches amongst various groups of fossil organisms 

 have further illustrated the danger of theorising upon insufficient 

 data, especially suggestive being the discovery of closely similar 

 forms which were formerly considered to be much more nearly related 

 than now proves to be the case. ... As the result of careful 

 work, dangers of the nature here suggested will be avoided, and our 

 chances of indicating lines of descent correctly will be much increased. 

 It must be remembered that however plausible the lines of descent 

 indicated by students of recent forms may be, the actual links in the 

 chains can only be discovered by examination of the rocks, and it is 

 greatly to be desired that more of our geologists, who have had a 

 thorough training in the field, should receive in addition one as 

 thorough in the zoological laboratory. Shall I be forgiven if I venture 

 on the opinion that a certain suspicion which some of my zoological 

 fellow countrymen have of geological methods is due to their com- 

 parative ignorance of palaeontology, and that it is as important for 

 them to obtain some knowledge of the principles of geology as it is 

 for the stratigraphical palaeontologist to study the soft parts of 

 creatures whose relatives he finds in the stratified rocks ? " 



For these and many other pointed remarks, all those who are 

 endeavouring to do work of real value, however minute their share, 

 owe the president of Section C a debt of gratitude, and they will 

 join with us in the hope that his Address will find its way into many 

 a dim recess that they know only too well. 



