718 REPORT—1899. 
Section C.—GEOLOGY. 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION.—SiR ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, D.C.L., D.Sc., F.R.S. 
The President delivered the following Address on Saturday, September 16 :— 
Amone the many questions of great theoretical importance which have engaged 
the attention of geologists, none has in late years awakened more interest or 
aroused livelier controversy than that which deals with Time as an element in 
geological history. The various schools which have successively arisen—Cata- 
clysmal, Uniformitarian, and Evolutionist—have had each its own views as to the 
duration of their chronology, as well as to the operations of terrestrial energy. 
But though holding different opinions, they did not make these differences matter 
of special controversy among themselves. About thirty years ago, however, they 
were startled by a bold irruption into their camp from the side of physics. They 
were then called on to reform their ways, which were declared to be flatly opposed 
to the teachings of natural philosophy. Since that period tke discussion then 
started regarding the age of the Earth and the value of geological time has con- 
tinued with varying animation. Evidence of the most multifarious kind has been 
brought forward, and arguments of widely different degrees of validity have been 
pressed into service both by geologists and palzontologists on one side, and by 
physicists on the other. For the last year or two there has been a pause in 
the controversy, though no general agreement has been arrived at in regard to the 
matters in dispute. The present interval of comparative quietude seems favourable 
for a dispassionate review of the debate. I propose, therefore, to take, as perhaps 
a not inappropriate subject on which to address geologists upon a somewhat 
international occasion like this present meeting of the British Association at Dover, 
the question of Geological Time. In offering a brief history of the discussion, I 
gladly avail myself of the opportunity of enforcing one of the lessons which the 
discussion has impressed upon my own mind, and to point a moral which, as it seems 
to me, we geologists may take home to ourselves from a consideration of the 
whole question. There is, I think, a practical outcome which may be made to 
issue from the controversy in a combination of sympathy and co-operation among 
geologists all over the world. A lasting service will be rendered to our science if 
by well-concerted effort we can place geological dynamics and geological chrono- 
logy on a broader and firmer basis of actual experiment and measurement than 
has yet been laid. 
To understand aright the origin and progress of the dispute regarding the 
value of time in geological speculation. we must take note of the attitude main- 
tained towards this subject by some of the early fathers of the science. Among 
these pioneers none has left his mark more deeply graven on the foundations of 
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