5'o 



NATURE 



[September :o, 1S94 



has widened her studies, and must, I should think, recognise 

 with piiiie the stalwart growth of her early friend. May they be 

 • 'rawn nearer together, and feel the warm glow which is 

 I rc'iuced by the sympathy of a common love for truth. 



THE I.XTERXATIOXAL GEOLOGICAL 

 COXGRESS A T ZURICH. 



'rilE sl.\ih meeting of the Intermtional Geolo:;ical Congress 

 '^ wai held at Zurich from Wednesday, August 29, to 

 MonJay, September 3, and was highly representative. Over 

 220 members were present, including leading geologists from 

 a!I parts of Europe. Swiss and German members were in the 

 inajorily. We may mention the names of MM. Renevier, Heim, 

 Golliez, Forel, Schardt among the Swiss represenlaiives, and 

 Karon Richthofen, MM. I3eyrich, Hauchecorne, Zitlel, 

 Credner, Groth, Giimbel among the German. From .\ustria 

 there were present, among others, MM. Suess, Mojsisovics, 

 Tietze, Penck ; from France, Prince Roland Bonaparte. MM. 

 Gaudry, de Lapparent, Michel Levy, Bertrand, de Margcrie ; 

 from Britain, Sir A. Geikie, Sir J. Lubbock, Prof. Hughes, 

 Prof. Sollas, Mr. W. Topley ; from Scandinavia, Prof. 

 Bi'jgger ; from Belgium, Prof. Dewalque ; from Italy, Prof. 

 Capellini, .MNL Pellati, de Gregorio ; (rom Russia, MM. 

 Karpinsky, Nikitin, Pavlov, von Toll ; from Roumania, M. i 

 Stefanescu ; from the United Slate-, Profs. R. Pompelly, 

 Lester Ward, van Hise. Prof. Haeckel, of Jena, was also 

 present at several meetings. 



Prof. Capellini opened the Congress, and called Prof. I 

 Renevier 10 the presidential chair for the meeting at Ziirich. 

 The new President intimated in his address that, according lo 

 a decision of council, the official language of the Congress 

 should remain as before, French ; at the same time communica- 

 tions made in German would be accepted, and would be 

 reported in the same langiiagr. Communications written in 

 other languages had to be translated into French. 



Without dtiubt the most important feature of the Congress 

 was the new international geological map, which has oeen 

 under course of preparation in Berlin since the Congress meet- 

 ing of 1881, and is now exhibited for the first lime. .\ report 

 on its progress was read by Dr. Hauchecorne, of Berlin. The [ 

 topographical groundwork has been pn pared by Kilpert, to i 

 scale I : 1,500,000 : the system of geological colouring followed 

 has been most successful, and the Congress has certainly every 

 reason to be satisfied with the result of the co-operation of the 

 various surveys and societies to produce an interrational map. 

 The whole map will contain 49 sheets ; only six are now ready 

 for is5ue, incliiJing the north west part of Europe, Northern 

 Germany, with parts of Fiance, Belgium, Poland, i:c. The I 

 next part, to be issued wii bin a year, wdl coniain ten sheets, and 

 will mclude the British Isles. France, Spain and Portugal, Italy, 

 and Swiizerland. Some difficulty has arisen in regard to the 

 older Pabeozoic rocks of various districts, and also as to the 

 method of showing the Quaternary beds. It is now settled that 

 solid rocks, wheie their distribution is known, will be shown 

 by thin bands of colour over the general colour for Quaternary 

 beds. (We reserve a fuller notice of this important work until 

 the .'beets arc published.) 



The subscription for the entire map is £^, but this can be 

 paid in instalments as the various parts are published. The 

 propoilion for the first part will be 10.'. Subscriptions must be 

 leni to Dietrich Reimer, Berlin, before the end of December 

 1894 ; after that the subscription price » ill be raised. 



On three days of the Congress meeting, communications were 

 delivered to a general assembly of members ; on one day, 

 sections were formed, and a large number of papers in this way 

 read. Unabated interest made itself felt throughout. At the 

 g-.neral assembly on August 29, I'rof. Suess gave an address 

 "On the Southern and the Northern Alps," in which he dis- 

 tinguished two main directions of movement in the Alps. The 

 Northern zone and the Central chain of the Alps formed a 

 region of "zutluss" (flow towards the .Von h Pole); the Southern 

 zone, continued into the I'inatian Alps, was a region of 

 "abftuss" (flow away from the North Pole). In the former 

 case the relations were in harmony with ihose of general 

 European movements ; in the latter, the relations were associated 

 with ihose of Asiatic chaini. 



Prof. Heim described the "Geology of the neighbourhood of 

 Zurich," and made it most clear by reference lo a splendid set of 



original maps and models. During the course of the Congress 

 Prof. Heim also organised several excursions on the lake and on 

 its banks, demonstrating that post-glacial movements of old 

 tluvial terr.ices are in direct connection with the origin of the 

 Lake of Zurich. As might have been expected, animated dis- 

 cussions were held among the members on the points at issue — 

 the origin of the lake-basin, proofs of interglacial periods, 

 mountain-movement which had affected glacial deposits, original 

 and ultimate direction of the valleys, S;c. 



On August 31, the general assembly was addressed by M. 

 Michel Levy and Prof, von Ziltel. Michel Levy's subject was 

 '■ The principles to be followed in a universal classilication of 

 the rocks." He regretted the canlusion which threatened 

 petrography wiih regard to its classification and nomendaluie. 

 Every day therumber of names derivcdfrom particular localities 

 increased, and useless synonyms were added. He proposed 

 that some general system of classification should be agreed upon 

 by pelrographers, and suggested it might be founded (I) on the 

 /f.v/nrer— afiortiing ihe great divisions ; (2) on the essemial con- 

 silient iiiiiieials, to give the names of the smaller groups. In 

 compliance with M. Michel Levy's desire, a Congress com- 

 mission was appointed to consider and revise the nomenclature. 

 Prof, von Zittel spoke on " Phylogeny, Ontogeny, and 

 systematic arrangement." He gave a word of warning against 

 the assumption ihat Darwin's Theory of Descent had been 

 actually demonstrated by palaeontology. In his experience its 

 application to paleontology had been in but few cases successful. 

 Great breaks occurred between the various classes of fossil 

 animals for which there was still no sulficient explanation. 

 Again, Ernst Haeckel's law, that ihe development of one 

 individual repeats the development of the whole family, had 

 been confirmed in few classes of palcconlological foruis. The 

 tendency of recent research had been becoming more and more 

 subjective ; even young investigators freely constructed new 

 species, new genera, a new system of classification or tine 

 of descent. Oihers as freely questioned the validity of the new 

 names and families, until a kind of anarchy prevailed in some of 

 the groups of the plant and animal kingdom. Sulid facts and 

 experiences must be carefully studied, while theory, even the 

 most brilliant, must be held at its mere theoretical value. 



At the general sitting on .Saturday, September I, Sir Archi- 

 bald Geikie and .M. .Marcel lieitrand spoke. Sir .\. Geikie's 

 paper, deliveied in French, was on the "Banded Structure of 

 oldest Gneisses and Tertiary Gabbros." Intrusive basic rocki 

 of Tertiary age in winch no mechanical deformation had taken 

 place, had assumed a banded stiuclure during their crystallisa- 

 tion from the oiiginal magma, the bands being occasionally 

 plicated. The structure exactly resembled what is observed 

 in many old banded gneisses, and arguing from analogy, these 

 gneisses might have acquired their banding during their original 

 consolidation, and not as the lesult of subsequent dynamo- 

 metamorphism. A series of photographs admirably illustrated 

 this suggestion. 



M. Bertrand treated the " Structure of the French Alps and 

 the rccurience of certain facies. " After describing the meta- 

 morphi^m of various sedimentary formations into the condition 

 of gneiss as the result of great dynamic changes, he pointed 

 out that in different countries and in cpiite difl'ercnt formations 

 certain facies followed each other in the same order of succes- 

 sion. These were a deep-sea facies, a " Flysch " facies formed 

 duiing uprise, followed by an aichipelago and river facies. In 

 the Fiench -Vlps, for examjile, the deep-sea facies was repre- 

 sented by the Devonian gneiss, the period of movement by the 

 carboniferous deposits, the shallow water by the later red sand- 

 stones. Taking the Swiss Alps, the same facies recurred in 

 younger formations ; one might distinguish gneiss of Permian 

 age, Flysch — (l) nnc and schistose of Triassic and Juiassic age; 

 (2) the coarser deposits of Cretaceous and Eocene age — and 

 uliimalely the archipelago facies of inolasse and nagelllue in 

 young Tertiary and Glacial time. 



M. de Margeiie read the report of the Commission of Biblio- 

 graphy. In accordance wilu the council, the Commission 

 olTers to furnish gratuitously a copy of the Catalogue of Geo- 

 logical Bibliographies, at present in the press, not only to all 

 the members of ihe preceding Congress, as had been agreed 

 upon at Washington, but also lo ihose of the Congress of 

 Zurich, The sectional meetings on Thursday, August 3**» 

 were of a special character. At the General Geology Section, 

 with Prof, de Lapparent ns president, most of the i>apers related 

 to glacial questions. The Congres.s, acting ujion proposals of 



NO. 1299. VOL. 50] 



