790 REPORT— 1890. 
some one who could work out the sum should be consulted before a final decision 
was arrived at, for I knew perfectly well that not one of the company present 
could do it. But if I say that my advice met with scant approval, I should repre- 
sent very inadequately the lack of support I met with. The bulk of those present 
seemed quite content with the vague feeling that the thing could be done in the 
way suggested, and there was a general air of indifference as to whether the 
hypothesis would stand the test of numerical verification or not. 
I could bring many other similar instances which seem to me to justify the 
charge I have ventured to make; but it will be more useful to inquire what it is 
that has led to a failing, which, if it really exist, must be a source of regret to the 
whole brotherhood of hammerers. 
The reason, I think, is not far to seek. The imperfection of the Geological 
Record is a phrase as true asit is hackneyed. No more striking instance of 
its correctness can be found than that furnished by the well-known Mammalian 
jaws from the Stonesfield slate. The first of these was unearthed about 1764, 
others, to the number of some nine, between then and 1818. The rock in 
which these precious relics of the beginning of mammalian life occur has been 
quarried without intermission ever since ; it has been ransacked by geologists and 
collectors without number; many of the quarrymen know a jaw when they see it, 
and are keenly alive to the market value of a specimen; but not one of these 
prized and eagerly-sought-after fossils has turned up during the last seventy 
ears. 
z Then again how many of the geological facts which we gather from observa- 
tion admit of diverse explanation. Take the case of Hozoon Canadense. Here we 
have structures which some of the highest authorities on the Foraminifera assure 
us are the remains of an organism belonging to that order; other naturalists, 
equally entitled to a hearing, will have it that these structures are purely mineral 
ageregates simulating organic forms. And hereby hangs the question whether the 
limestones in which the problematical fossil occurs are organic, or formed in some 
other and perhaps scarcely explicable way. 
And this after all is only one of’ the countless uncertainties that crowd the 
whole subject of invertebrate paleontology. In what a feeble light have we con- 
stantly to grope our way when we attempt the naming of fossil Conchifers for 
instance. The two species Gryphea dilatata and G. bilobata furnish an illustra- 
tion. Marked forms are clearly separable, but it is easy to obtain a suite of 
specimens, even from the Callovian of which the second species is said to be 
specially characteristic, showing a gradual passage from one form into the other, 
And over and over again the distinctions relied upon for the discrimination of 
species must be pronounced far-fetched and shadowy, and are, it is to be feared, 
often based upon points which are of slender value for classificatory purposes. In 
the case of fossil plants the last statement is notoriously true, and yet we are con- 
tinually supplied with long lists of species which every botanist knows to be words 
and nothing more, and zonal divisions are based upon these bogus species and con- 
clusions drawn from them. 
It is from data such as have been instanced, scrappy to the last degree, or from 
facts capable of being interpreted in more than one way, or from determinations 
shrouded in mist and obscurity, that we geologists have in a large number of cases 
to draw our conclusions. Inferences based on such incomplete and shaky founda- 
tions must necessarily be very largely hypothetical. That this is the character of 
a great portion of the conclusions of geology we are all ready enough to allow with 
our tongue—nay, even to lay stress upon the fact with penned or spoken emphasis. 
But it is open to question whether this homage at the shrine of logic is in many 
cases anything better than lip-service ; whether we take sufficiently to heart the 
meaning of our protestations, and are always as alive as our words would imply to 
the real nature of our inferences. 
A novice in trade, scrupulously honest, even morbidly conscientious to begin 
with, if he lives among those who habitually use false scales, runs imminent risk 
of having his sense of integrity unconsciously blunted and his moral standard 
insensibly ]owered, A similar danger besets the man whose life is occupied in 
