766 REPORT—1896. 
service to the science. It is specially important that local observers should be 
willing to devote themselves to the study of particular groups of organisms, and 
to collect large suites of specimens of the group they have chosen for study. With 
a group like the graptolites, for instance, the specimens which are apparently best 
preserved are often of little value from a morphological point of view, and frag- 
ments frequently furnish more information than more complete specimens. These 
fragments seldom find their way to our museums, and accordingly we may examine 
a large suite of graptolites in those museums without finding any examples showing 
particular structures of importance, such as the sac-like bodies carried by many of 
these creatures. As an illustration of the value of work done by one who has 
made a special study of a particular group of organisms, I may refer to the 
remarkable success achieved by the late Mr. Norman Glass in developing the 
calcareous supports of the brachial processes of Brachiopods. Work of this cha- 
racter will greatly reduce the imperfection of the record trom the biologist’s point 
of view. 
The importance of detailed work leads one to comment upon the general 
methods of research which have been largely adopted in the ease of the stratified 
rocks, The principle that strata are identifiable by their included organisms is the 
basis of modern work, as it was of that which was achieved by the father of 
English Geology, and the identification of strata in this manner has of recent 
years been carried out in very great detail, notwithstanding the attempt on the 
part of some well-known writers to show that correlation of strata in great detail 
is impossible. The objection to this detailed work is mainly founded upon the 
fact that it must take time for an organism or group of organisms to migrate from 
one area to another, and therefore it was stated that they cannot have lived con- 
temporaneously in two remote areas. But the force of this objection is practically 
done away with if it can be shown that the time taken for migration is exceedingly 
short as compared with the time of duration of an organism or group of organisms 
upon the earth, and this has been shown in the only possible way—namely, by 
accumulating a very great amount of evidence as the result of observation. The 
eminent writers referred to above, who were not trained geologists, never properly 
grasped the vast periods of time which must have elapsed during the occurrence of 
the events which it is the geologist’s province to study. An historian would speak 
of events which began at noon on a certain day and ended at midnight at the 
close of that day as contemporaneous with events which commenced and ended 
five minutes later, and this is quite on a par with what the geologist does when 
correlating strata. Nevertheless, there are many people who still view the 
task of correlating minute subdivisions of stratified systems with one another 
with a certain amount of suspicion, if not with positive antipathy; but the 
work must be done for all that. Brilliant generalisations are attractive as 
well as valuable, but the steady accumulation of facts is as necessary for the 
advancement of the science as it was in the days when the Geological Society 
was founded, and its members applied themselves ‘to multiply and record 
observations, and patiently to await the result at some future period.’ I have 
already suggested a resemblance between geology and cricket, and I may be per- 
mitted to point out that just as in the game the free-hitter wins the applause, 
though the patient ‘ stone-waller’ often wins the match, so, in the science, the man 
apt at brilliant generalisations gains the approval of the general public, but the 
patient recorder of apparently insignificant details adds matter of permanent value 
to the stores of our knowledge. In the case of stratigraphical geology, if we 
were contpelled to be content with correlation of systems only, and were unable to 
ascertain which of the smaller series and stages were contemporaneous, but could 
only speak of these as ‘ homotaxial,’ we should be in much the same position as 
the would-be antiquary who was content to consider objects fashioned by the 
Romans as contemporaneous with those of medieval times. Under such circum- 
stances geology would indeed be an uncertain science, and we should labour in the 
field, knowing that a satisfactory earth-history would never be written: Let us 
hope that a brighter future is in store for us, and let me urge my countrymen to 
continue to study the minute subdivisions of the strata, lest they be left behind by 
