4.62 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION GC. 
Section C.—GFOLOGY. 
PRESIDENT OF THE SEcTIoN.—Dr. A. SmitH Woopwarp, F.R.S. 
THURSDAY, AUGUST 26, 
The President delivered the following Address :— 
THE circumstances of the present Meeting very clearly determine the subject 
of a general address to be expected from a student of extinct animals. The 
remarkable discoveries of fossil backboned animals made on the North 
American continent during the last fifty years suggest an estimate of the 
results achieved by the modern systematic methods of research; while the 
centenary celebration of the birth of Darwin makes it appropriate to con- 
sider the extent to which we may begin deducing the laws of organic evolu- 
tion from the life of past ages as we now know it. Such an address must, 
of course, be primarily biological in character, and treat of some matters 
which are not ordinarily discussed by Section C. The subject, however, can 
only be appreciated fully by those who have some practical acquaintance 
with the limitations under which geologists pursue their researches, and 
especially by those who are accustomed to geological modes of thought. 
There has been an unfortunate tendency during recent years for the 
majority of geologists to relinquish the study of fossils in absolute despair. 
More ample material for examination and more exact methods of research 
have altered many erroneous names which were originally used; while 
the admission to scientific publications of too many mere literary exercises 
on the so-called ‘law of priority’ has now made it necessary to learn not 
one, but several names for some of the genera and species which are com- 
monly met with. Even worse, the tentative arrangement of fossils in 
‘genetic series’ has led to the invention of a multitude of terms which 
often serve to give a semblance of scientific exactitude to the purest guess- 
work, and sometimes degenerate into a jargon which is naturally repellent 
to an educated mind. Nevertheless, I still hope to show that, with all 
these difficulties, there is so much of fundamental interest in the new work 
that it is worth while to make an effort to appreciate it. Geology and 
paleontology in the past have furnished some of the grandest possible con- 
tributions to our knowledge of the world of life ; they have revealed hidden 
meanings which no study of the existing world could even suggest; and 
they have started lines of inquiry which the student of living animals and 
plants alone would scarcely have suspected to be profitable. The latest, 
researches are the logical continuation of this pioneer work on a more exten- 
sive scale, and with greater precision; and I am convinced that they will 
continue to be as important a factor in the progress of post-Darwinian 
