858 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 51. 



years, down to the time when scientific studies 

 of the aborigines began to be made, five or six 

 millions of slaves had been imported, a number 

 equal to the entire native population of both 

 Americas. 



In the first half century middle America and 

 South America were Latinized. The Dutch, 

 French and English had monopolized North 

 America in its northern and eastern portions 

 two centuries ago. The Russians for more than 

 a hundred years have contaminated the native 

 arts of the northwest. Nine hundred years ago 

 the Scandinavians invaded Greenland and six 

 hundred years ago they were absorbed or killed 

 by the natives. 



The earth, even, does not divide the old from 

 the new. The insidious iron is in shell heaps, 

 in mounds, in cemeteries, in huacas and in 

 ancient works of art. 



Since these things are indisputably so, it be- 

 hooves the true ethnographer, the true archae- 

 ologist, the true linguist, the true historian, to 

 enter into a friendly cooperation to reconstruct 

 the native activity. 



There are some things in favor of the true 

 science, in spite of fraud, insuflicient data and 

 false labeling. There is, no doubt, a home 

 flavor, a harmonious agreement among all the 

 works of a people and the environment. The 

 iron arrow-head is always coupled with a shaft 

 covered with color and cuttings of an older age. 

 The very shape and application of the new will 

 conform to the methods of the old, though that 

 be not the easiest. 



In these transitions the old will sometimes 

 excel, sometimes fall far below the new. 

 Wherein the use of iron was adopted native art 

 improved, wherein it was not useful native arts 

 declined. It is not true that all good things 

 are old or that all old things are good. 



The modern contaminated native art is not 

 to be despised, but when correctly understood 

 it not only reveals to us the old that was con- 

 cealed in it, but it suggests to the thoughtful 

 man many of the roads and methods by which 

 accultivation may proceed. 



Major J. W. Powell, President of the Society, 

 read a paper on cognition. 



George R. Stetson, 

 Recording Secretary. 



GEOLOGICAL CONFERENCE OF HARVARD UNIVER- 

 SITY, NOVEMBER 26, 1895. 

 Some Causes of the Imperfection of the Geologic 



Record. By N. S. Shaler. 



Our treatises on geology have as yet not given 

 quite enough attention to the array of causes 

 which have tended to bring out imperfections in 

 the geological record. The ordinary accidents 

 of erosion, metamorphism, and the deep covering 

 of beds by subsequently deposited strata have 

 been taken into account, but there are a number 

 of considerations which do not as yet appear to 

 have been fully discussed, without essaying any- 

 thing like a full presentation of these neglected 

 influences certain of them will here be presented. 



First it is to be noted that the record which 

 we seek to interpret is to a great extent made 

 either by the mechanical history of strata or by 

 the organic events which are recorded in them. 

 Certain influences tend in general to bring these 

 divisions of the record into marked contrast with 

 each other. When the process of deposition 

 goes on with great rapidity the resvilt is naturally 

 a section of great thickness, but one which is 

 likely to be barren or of limited fossil contents. 

 Such a set of deposits on account of its great 

 depth is likely to withstand erosion in an 

 effective way and may remain for ages as 

 the record of a time that has left no other 

 monuments ; on the other hand, the deposits of 

 the period in question which are of an organic 

 character are likely to be relatively thin, and 

 if they be composed of ordinary limestone are 

 very much n\ore exposed to the assaults of decay. 



Wherever we have extensive deposits of cal- 

 cific limestones the beds are exposed not only 

 to superficial erosion and the like work of cavern 

 streams, but also to a solutional process which 

 with considerable rapidity may remove the 

 materials composing the beds for all the depths 

 to which the surface waters penetrate. In cen- 

 tral Kentucky the spring waters are annually 

 removing from the rocks in the dissolved state 

 nearly as much rock matter as is eroded by 

 the superficial streams. The result of this 

 processs will be in time to leave the numerous 

 arenaceous layers which are generally uufossil- 

 iferous and to remove the limestone beds which 

 contain the most important part of the record. 

 In this way we may perhaps account for the 



