340 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION C. 
SECTION C. 
GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
By Captain F. W. Hurron, F.R.S., F.G.8., &c., Curator, Canter- 
bury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand. 
(Delivered Saturday, January 8, 1898.) 
KARLY LIFE ON THE EARTH. 
ONE peculiarity of geologists is that we receive new facts with 
suspicion, but welcome theories with open arms, provided they 
are properly introduced by authority. This has always been so 
from the beginning. Jt was a hundred and fifty years before 
geologists would believe the simple fact that a fossil shell was a 
fossil shell ; and it was more than a hundred and fifty years before 
they would abandon the official theory that fossil shells had been 
buried during the Noachian deluge. It is the same at the present 
day ; facts of observation are long dishelieved, while exploded 
theories die hard. 
I do not say this in our disparagement, for there are good 
reasons why it should be so. Facts, especially paleeontological 
facts, are usually discovered by members of the rank and file, and 
generally they are incomplete facts which have to be filled out 
with inferences, often erroneous, but which are supposed to be 
parts of the facts. Thus suspicion is begotten, and we often rightly 
refuse to receive incomplete facts until they have been verified 
by other discoveries, which may not take place for a long time. 
Theories, on the other hand, are usually started by someone in 
authority, whose position guarantees him a respectful hearing, and 
whose great knowledge is sure to make the theory appear plausible 
at the time. The ordinary geologist submits at once with the 
comfortable feeling of a patient who has placed himself in the 
hands of his doctor. 
I make these few prefatory remarks because in this address I 
shall mention a number of facts of observation, some of which 
