Notices of Memoirs — Presidential Address. 413 



is obvious, and if, as the writer understands Mr. Simpson to be 

 inclined to think, obsidiauites are bombs hurled enormous distances 

 from terrestrial volcanoes, a thin skin of fused glass might be formed 

 during their descent. To the writer, however, a meteoric origin 

 seems the more probable. 



Obsidiauites are now known to have been found in the following 

 localities in Malaysia: — Billiton (Verbeek, op. cit.); Mt. Moeriah, 

 Djapara, Java (pp. 245, 246); Pleiari, Tanah Laut, S.E. Borneo 

 (pp. 246, 247); Sungri Riam, Tanah Laut, S.E. Borneo (pp. 246, 

 247); Bungarau (Katuna Archipelago) (Krause, op. cit.) ; Blat and 

 Gambang Valleys, Pahang ; Gemas and Sungri Triang, Negri Sembilan 

 (H. C. Robinson) ; Sudu Seremban, Negri Sembilan (L. Wray).' 



ISTOTICES OIF 1>K'Bll>KCDX:Ei,&. 



British Association for the Advancement of Science. Abstkact 

 OF Address to the Geological Section by Arthur Smith 

 Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S., V.P.Z.S., Sec.G.S., Keeper of 

 Geology in the British Museum, President of the Section. 

 Winnipeg, Canada, August 26, 1909. 



''pHE circumstances of the present meeting very clearly determine 

 J_ 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 consider the extent to 

 whicli we may begin deducing the laws of organic evolution from the 

 life of past ages as we now know it. 



a- a- % ■};• % a- *- 



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 commonly 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 guesswork, and 



' The Pahang- obsidiauites, like obsidiauites elsewhere, have been stated to be 

 jjieces of slag resulting from smelting operations. A comparison of the physical and 

 chemical properties of obsidiauites and slag from a furnace in operation shows how 

 wide of the mark this view is. A more interestiug theory emanated from a ilalay 

 Rajah, who told the writer that he had collected a number of these stones and 

 believed each to contain a gem in the centre. A valuation was asked for, and the 

 writer felt sorry that it should fall to his lot to destroy the Rajah's belief by cracking 

 one open for his inspection. 



