342 INTERNATIONAL GEOLOGICAL CONGRESS. 



heart was wrung by this sorrow, and at once he set 

 off with his wife to Brighton, there to look on the 

 face of his dear sister for the last time. For several 

 days he had no heart for work, and it was well that 

 the nearness of the date of the International Geologi- 

 cal Congress compelled him to make the necessary 

 preparations. 



The idea of an International Geological Congress had 

 originated in America. The first had been held in 

 Paris in 1878, the second at Bologna in 1881, and the 

 third in Berlin in 1885 ; the fourth congress met in 

 London in the rooms of the London University at Bur- 

 lington House, on the evening of the 17th September 

 1888, when Professor Prestwich delivered the Presi- 

 dential Address in French. An old geologist in con- 

 gratulating him remarked that he spoke much better 

 in French than in English ! The Address treated of 

 the unification of geological terms over the world, and 

 of an agreement as to colours used in maps. It indi- 

 cated the questions to be considered "the classifi- 

 cation of the Cambrian and Silurian formations, the 

 relations between the Carboniferous and the Permian, 

 between the Rhsetic and the Jurassic, and between the 

 Tertiary and the Quaternary. Among the new questions 

 which would be brought before the London Congress 

 was, above all, the fundamental question of crystalline 

 schists, &c., . . ." The assemblage was larger than 

 that of any of the three preceding congresses : up- 

 wards of 300 members attended in London, represent- 

 ing twenty-one different countries from Norway, from 

 Peru and Mexico, and even from the Argentine Re- 

 public in short, from all quarters of the globe. The 

 personal intercourse with many of the distinguished 

 American geologists present, was to the President ever 



