August 22, 1878] 



NATURE 



445 



among its strata organic forms belonging to various divisions of 

 the Cambrian up to the Arenig. The Taconian, although con- 

 taining an undescribed linguloid shell and a so-called scolithus, 

 is by the author considered provisionally as distinct from the 

 Cambrian. It has yielded in Ontario, besides scolithus, the 

 Eozoon Canadense, and may perhaps be regarded as the con- 

 necting link between the eozoic and paleozoic ages. 



The upper Tacosic, or so-called Quebec group in Eastern 

 North America, is separated by a stratigraphical break from the 

 succeeding portion of the Cambrian, the Bala group (Trenton, 

 Utica, and Loraine), while, on the contrary, the supposed dis- 

 cordance in the regions just mentioned at the summit of the 

 latter, corresponding to the division between Cambrian and 

 Silurian in Wales, appears to have been based on a misconcep- 

 tion. There is, however, an important palseontological break 

 at this horizon, connected with a great deposit of barren detrital 

 rocks, which marked the close of the Cambrian period, and the 

 author records his opinion that the name of lower Silurian, as 

 well as that of Siluro-Cambrian, which he, with others, has 

 applied to the Bala or upper division of the Cambrian is to be 

 rejected as being historically incorrect and as tending to per- 

 petuate false views of the palasontological relations between 

 these and the succeeding rocks. 



The early advocates in North America of the metamorphism 

 of palaeozoic rocks taught, in the first place, the stratigraphical 

 equivalence of the upper Taconic (or lower and middle Cambrian) 

 with the upper Cambrian, and further maintained that these 

 rocks had suffered various degrees and various kinds of meta- 

 morphism, as the resxilt of which they had assumed, in different 

 areas, the characters of the Taconian, the Montalban, and Huro- 

 nian, and the Laurentian ; the lithological differences between 

 these several series being regarded as marks of the greater or 

 less alteration which, it was supposed, these uncrystalline Cam- 

 brian sediments had undergone. Other geologists have ima- 

 gined portions of these same crystalline formations in North 

 America to be altered strata of Silurian, Devonian, and even of 

 triassic age. 



The great groups of eozoic rocks already described constitute, 

 however, in the author's opinion, as many great stratified series 

 which, before the Cambrian time, existed in their present crys- 

 talline condition, and had been successively subjected to the 

 accidents of uplift, contortion, and denudation, so that the 

 newer eozoic groups were, at the beginning of the paleozoic 

 period, distributed irr^darly over the floor of fundamental 

 Laurentian gneiss. These various crystalline groups are found, 

 with a singular persistence and uniformity of lithological character, 

 from Alabama to Newfoundland, along the Atlantic belt, and 

 thence westward through Canada to the great lakes, and beyond, 

 in the vast regions of the Cordilleras to the Pacific slope. 



The author had some years since pointed out the remarkable 

 similarity between these various crystalline groups of North 

 America and the crystalline rocks of the British Islands, and 

 had lately been able, by new observations, to confirm his 

 conclusions. Among the crystalline formations of Don^al 

 he had indicated representatives of Laurentian, Montalban, and 

 Huronian, and the latter he had recently observed largely deve- 

 loped inArgyleshire and Perthshire. To the Huronian also he 

 refers the green schists of Anglesea and Carnarvonshire, in both 

 of which regions the orthofelsite or halleflinta series at the base 

 of the Huronian (the so-called porphyries), and likewise the more 

 ancient gneisses, are well represented. He would, however, leave 

 this subject to his friend Dr. Henry Hicks, who has so happily 

 mastered the obscure problems of the pre- Cambrian geology of 

 Wales. The studies of Gastaldi and others enable us to assert 

 that similar series of ancient rocks occur in the same order in 

 the Alps; and we infer that the chemical and physical con- 

 ditions which presided over the production of the crystalline 

 stratified rocks were world-wide. 



SECTION D. 



BIOLOGY. 



Department of Anatomy and Physiology. 



Address byR. McDonnell, M.D., F.R.S., Vice-President 

 OF THE Section. 



Since this Association met twelve months ago the science of 

 physiology has suffered an irreparable loss. In February last 

 Claude Bernard died in the sixty-fifth year of his age. He was 

 interred with a degree of pomp never in this country, and rarely 



even in France, accorded to men of science. His country showed 

 how justly and how highly they estimated the merit of a man 

 who, gentle, unobtrusive, modest, by the greatness of his genius 

 and the brilliancy of his many discoveries shed a lustre on the 

 land which gave him birth. It was my privilege to have been 

 at one time a pupil of this illustrious physiologist. It will be 

 my pride if I can show to a thoughtful and cultivated audience, 

 such as I have now the honour to address, that the discoveries 

 of my honoured master, although of necessity made by experi- 

 ment on animals, have added much to that stock of knowledge 

 which has conferred the greatest benefits upon mankind. In an 

 address like this — limited to a short time — it would not be pos- 

 sible to give a detailed account of the work accomplished by 

 Bernard. To do so would be to give a history of the progress 

 of physiology for the last thirty-five years. His researches were 

 so extended, and some of his discoveries so vast, that by com- 

 parison they seem to make others appear small, as the gigantic 

 Californian pine seems to dwarf a goodly -sized oak which grows 

 alongside it. Hence, we speak of Bernard's less important 

 researches — of his minor discoveries, although of sufficient mag- 

 nitude to have seemed great if made by another. Of these I 

 cannot speak at length, yet some of my hearers will know that 

 the services which Bernard has rendered to science by his re- 

 searches on the pnemnogastric nerves, the fifth pair, the chorda 

 tympani, the facial, &c., are not small. Assuredly, the same 

 may be said for his observations on " recurrent sensibility ; " on 

 the blood pressm^e and the gases of the blood ; on the variations 

 of colour of this fluid, according to the active or passive condition 

 of the functions of the organ traversed by it ; on the variations 

 of temperature during these conditions of functional activity or 

 inactivity ; on the elective elimination by the glands of sub- 

 stances introduced into the economy, or of those which, as 

 morbid products, accumulate in the system as the result of 

 certain morbid states ; on the special character and action of the 

 varieties of the salivary secretions ; upon the influence of the 

 nervous centres on the secretion of saliva ; on the electric pheno- 

 mena manifested in nerve and muscle ; on albuminuria connected 

 w ith lesions of the nervous system ; and (notably in its important 

 practical bearings on lursemia) on the modifications of the secre- 

 tions of the stomach and intestines after arrest of the elimination 

 of urea through the natural channels. Claude Bernard, in truth, 

 left his mark deeply on every aspect of physiology on which he 

 touched. His discoveries, however, as regards the functions of 

 the pancreas, of the liver, and concerning the vaso-motor system 

 of nerves, are those on which his fame will ever chiefly rest. 

 Dr. McDonnell then dwelt in detail on the importance of 

 Bernard's researches from a medical point of view. 



Department of Anthropology. 



The business of this department was opened by the following 

 address from Prof. Huxley. 



When I undertook, with the greatest possible pleasm-e, to 

 act as a lieutenant of my friend the president of this Sec- 

 tion, I steadfastly purposed to confine myself to the modest 

 and useful duties of that position. For reasons, with which 

 it is not worth while to trouble you, I did not propose to 

 follow the custom which has grown up in the Association of 

 delivering an address upon the occasion of taking the chair 

 of a section or department. In clear memory of the admir- 

 able addresses which you have had the privilege of hearing 

 from Prof. Flower, and just now from Dr. M'Donnell, I 

 cannot doubt that that practice is a very good one ; but I would 

 venture to say, to use a term of philosophy, that it looks very 

 much better from an objective than from a subjective point of 

 view. But I found that my resolution, like a great many good 

 resolutions that I have made in the course of my life, came to 

 very little, and that it was thought desirable that I should address 

 you in some way. But I must beg of you to understand that 

 this is no formal address. I have simply announced it as a few 

 introductory remarks, and I must ask you to forgive whatever 

 of crudity and imperfection there may be in the mode of ex- 

 pression of what I have to say, although natiurally I shall do my 

 best to take care that there is neither crudity nor inaccuracy in 

 the substance of it. It has occiured to me that I might address 

 myself to a point in connection with the business of this depart- 

 ment which forces itself more or less upon the attention of 

 everybody, and which, unless the bellicose instincts of human 

 nature are less marked on this side of St. George's Channel than 

 on the other, may possibly have something to do with the large 

 audiences we are always accustomed to see in the anthropological 



