152 



NATURE 



[June i6, 1892 



(9) The Body of Graduates in Convocation assembled 

 to have the power of appealing to the Privy Council, but 

 to have no veto upon the action of the Senate. The Chair- 

 man of Convocation to be ex officio a member of the Senate. 



The Medical Schools will probably require special 

 treatment. Though they might advantageously hand 

 over the teaching of pure science to the University, each 

 school might retain control over its own teaching of 

 medicine and surgery and over the funds devoted 

 thereto. 



(10) The Medical Faculty to consist of representatives 

 elected by the Teachers in recognized London Medical 

 Schools. 



(11) The recognized Medical Schools to be determined 

 in the first instance by the Commission referred to in 

 Clause (14), but afterwards from time to time by the 

 Senate, subject to appeal to the Privy Council. 



(12) A certain number of the members of the Medical 

 Faculty to be nominated University Professors in accord- 

 ance with the provisions of Clause (4). The number 

 of Medical Professors on the Senate not to exceed one- 

 fourth of the total number of University Professors on 

 the Senate. 



(13) A teacher of pure science in a recognized Medical 

 School to become a Member of the Faculty of Science, 

 whenever the appointment to his post is entrusted 

 permanently or pro hac vice to the Senate of the 

 University. 



(14) To facilitate in the first instance the organization 

 of the University, it is suggested that a small and inde- 

 pendent Commission of legal and educational authorities 

 be appointed by Act of Parliament with full powers — 



{a) To investigate and determine upon the claims of 

 institutions wishing to be absorbed under Clause 5. 



ip) To arrange for the proper disposal of the trust- 

 funds of those institutions which may be absorbed, and 

 to determine the conditions under which their property 

 shall be vested in the Governing Body of the University. 



{c) To arbitrate on all matters concerning the interests 

 of existing teachers as affected by the action of Clause 

 (5), and 



{d) Generally to make such arrangements as may be 

 necessary for the establishment of the University on the 

 foregoing lines. 



We are requested to add that the names of those de- 

 sirous of supporting the Association will be received by 

 any member of the Executive Committee,^ or may be 

 sent directly to the Secretary (Prof. Karl Pearson, Christ- 

 church Cottage, Hampstead, N.W.). The Association 

 already numbers some seventy members, includ- 

 ing Profs. H. E. Armstrong, F.R.S., W. E. Ayrton, 

 F.R.S., F. O. Bower, F.R.S., O. Henrici, F.R.S., E. 

 Frankland, F.R.S., E. Ray Lankester, F.R.S., F. Max 

 Miiller, O. J. Lodge, F.R.S., Norman Lockyer, F.R.S., 

 W. J. Russell, F.R.S., W. A. Tilden, F.R.S., H. Marshall 

 Ward, F.R.S., Principals H. R. Reichel, W. M. Hicks, 

 F.R.S., and C. Lloyd Morgan, besides many other names 

 equally well known in literature, science, and art. A 

 complete list will shortly be issued. 



W 



SUBDIVISIONS IN ARCH^AN HISTORY? 

 I . Subdivisions based on Kinds of Rocks. 

 ERNER'S idea that kinds of rocks and grade of 

 crystallization afford a basis for the chronological 

 subdivision of crystalline rocks is more or less apparent 

 in nearly all attempts that have since been made to lay 



I This Committee at present consists of the following : — F. V. Dickins, 

 G. Carey Foster, R. S. Heath, E. Ray Lankester, Karl Pearson, H. E. 

 Roscoe, A. W. Rucker, T. E. Thorpe, W. C. Unwin, W^. F. R. Weldon. 



- Reprinted from the June number of the American Journal of Science, 

 rom advance sheets forwarded by the author. The paper is to be con- 

 tinued in the American Journal of Science. 



NO. 1 181, VOL. 46J 



down the general subdivisions of Archaean terranes. The 

 " fundamental gneiss " has gone to the bottom and the 

 thinner schists to the top. There is a degree of truth 

 in the idea. But the assumptions are so great that 

 at the present time little reason exists for the earnestness 

 sometimes shown by advocates of such systems. The 

 idea has little to sustain it in the known facts of geology. 

 The following are sufficient to decide the question. 



According to the thorough petrological and geological 

 study of the rocks of the Bernardston region by Prof. B. 

 K. Emerson '—a region in the Connecticut valley, in the 

 towns chiefly of Bernardston, Massachusetts, and Vernon, 

 Vermont— there are the following rocks : granite, largely 

 feldspathic ; dioryte, so like intrusive dioryte that it had 

 been pronounced trap ; quartz-dioryte ; granitoid gneiss 

 faintly foliated with biotite and passing into the granite ; 

 hornblende schist ; quartzyte ; quartzyte prophyritic with 

 feldspar crystals ; staurolitic and garnetiferous mica 

 schist ; hydromica schist ; argillyte ; massive magnetite,, 

 making a bed of magnetite rock ; along with coarsely 

 crystalline limestone and quartzytic limestone containing 

 Crinoids, Corals, and Brachiopods : all together making 

 one series of rocks of later Devonian age. My own ob- 

 servations in the region confirm the conclusions of Prof. 

 Emerson. Such facts prove, moreover, that " massive " 

 as applied to crystalline rocks does not signify igneous. 

 The granite is not eruptive granite, but part of a stratum 

 which is elsewhere quartzyte, the quartzyte graduating 

 into granite ; the latter was never in fusion. 



Again : on the borders of New England and New 

 York there are schists of all gradations from massive 

 Cambrian gneiss to Cambrian and Hudson River hydro- 

 mica schist and argillyte, the age fixed by fossils. Becker 

 reports similar facts from the Cretaceous of California. 

 Such observations, and others on record, make it hazar- 

 dous to pronounce any gneiss in an Archaean area 

 " fundamental gneiss," or any associated slaty schist the 

 younger of the two. It may be true ; but it may not be. 

 It is probable that the thin-bedded schists are absent 

 from the older Archaean, but not that the thick-bedded 

 and massive are absent from the later Archaean. 



The little chronological value of kinds of crystalline 

 rocks in the later Archaean comes out to view still more 

 strongly if we consider with some detail the length and 

 conditions of Archiean time. 



The earth must have counted many millions of years 

 from the first existence of a solid exterior, when the 

 temperature was above 2500° F., to the time, when, at 

 a temperature below 1000° F. — probably near 500° F., 

 supposing the atmospheric pressure to have then been 

 that of 50 atmospheres— the condensation of the waters 

 of the dense aerial envelope had made such progress 

 that an ocean, moving in tides and currents, had taken 

 its place on the surface." There were other millions 

 afterward along the decline in temperature to the ISC'" F. 

 mark — 180" F. the mean temperature of the ocean — 

 when, according to observations on living species, the 

 existence of plants in the waters became, as regards 

 temperature, a possibility ;'» and still other millions from 

 the 180° F. mark to that of 120° F., or nearly, when 

 marine animal life may possibly have begun its existence. 

 And since cooling went on at a decreasing rate toward 

 the end, time was also long from the 120" F. mark to 

 that of a mean oceanic temperature of 90'^ F., or below 

 it, when Paleozoic life found congenial conditions in the 

 water. The mean temperature now is about 60^ F. 



I A description of the "Bernardston Series" of Metamorphic Upper 

 Devonian Rocks, by Ben K. Kmtrson, American Journal of Science, III., 

 xl., 263, 1890. 



R. Mallet estimated, in view of the density of the atmosphere — over 

 200 atmospheres to the square inch — that the first drops of water may have 

 been condensed on the earth's surface when the temperature was that of 

 molten iron.— Phil. Mag., January 1880. 



3 They live now in waters having a temperature of 200° F., Brewer, at 

 Pluton Creek, California ; 185°, W. H. Weed, Yellowstone Park. More- 

 over germs of Bacilli have germinated after having been boiled for an hour. 



