84 PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 1903 
contributions delivered during our Summer Meetings—so 
that our Volume will give evidence of our continued 
activity. 
The solution of the great secret of the origin of this 
world, as well as of the stars which nightly appear in the 
heavens, is not yet, but as years roll on our information 
gradually increases. Thus by means of the spectroscope 
we learn that in the sun and other orbs there are inorganic 
elements, so-called, which correspond with those in the 
crust of the earth. Indeed, helium was first indicated by 
unknown lines in the spectrum of the sun, and later on 
< 
‘run to earth,” as one has expressed it, by Professor 
Ramsay in the mineral uraninite. In the meteors which 
fall on our planet we find no new element; the constitu- 
ents are all to be found in the rocks of our earth. In the 
solar system, as Professor A. H. Green remarks, “the 
facts point to a common origin for all the members of the 
system, and to some common scheme, according to which 
the system has grown into its present shape; assuming, 
of course, that it has reached its present state by some 
process of natural evolution, an assumption to which 
analogy leads: the nebular hypothesis furnishes us with 
some such scheme and such an origin.” The nebular 
hypothesis is now generally accepted and is in accord with 
the Mosaic record that “in the beginning the earth was 
without form and void,” but beyond this we have little 
knowledge of the initial origin of the earth. Our only 
real knowledge of the history of the earth is the imperfect 
geological record, and though this has been gradually 
pushed further and further into the unknown past, yet the 
range is still limited, while the beginning of life on the 
earth is unknown. 
During the early part of the last century stratigraphical 
geology was practically unknown, and people were gener- 
ally ignorant of the true meaning of fossils. Fossil shells 
