CLASSIFICATION OF STRATIFIED ROCKS 673 
expression of the views of their fellow workers, saw no reason 
for interference with, or the taking of an active part in, the 
solution of questions which pertained so largely to European 
geology. It was evident, to one watching the work of the con- 
gress, that the difficulties and dissent increased as the territory 
under consideration enlarged. England and Russia whose 
domains lay farthest from the center of Europe had greater 
difficulty in adjusting their classifications and nomenclatures to 
the common scheme than did the diverse states situated in the 
central part of Europe; and the geologists of the United States, 
most of all, have found insurmountable difficulties to the com- 
plete application of the European scheme to their own work. 
After the questions relative to the construction of the geological 
map of Europe were settled, this general dissatisfaction with 
attempts to settle questions of science by majorities resulted, at 
the London meeting, in the decision no longer to settle questions 
of general debate by formal votes; and in the following con- 
gresses, at Washington, Zurich and St. Petersburg, only such 
questions as had been submitted for consideration to commissions, 
and were carefully formulated, were put to formal vote of the 
body of the congress. 
While these things were going on in the congress, the geol- 
ogists of the United States were active along the same lines in 
their own country. 
A few American geologists attended the Berlin Congress in 
1885, and prepared a detailed English report of the proceedings. 
(The official proceedings of the congresses have been reported in 
French.) After their return an American committee, composed 
of fifteen geologists, set to work to prepare a report on the clas- 
sification and nomenclature then in use in America, This report 
was submitted at, and published as a part of the proceedings of, © 
the London Congress in 1888. In this report, the state of prog- 
ress toward uniformity in the United States, of both nomencla- 
ture and classification of stratified rocks was given in summary 
form; and some of the difficulties and diversities in usage were 
pointed out. Following this, and probably suggested by one of 
