402 
Stockholm Congress of 1897 the true inter- 
national work was begun, and the problems 
there proposed are now the subjects of care- 
ful study in all parts of the earth. Let us 
hope that the reports to be presented at the 
future Congresses will be such as to add to 
the present stock of knowledge, prove ad- 
vantageous to both producers and consum- 
ers, and assist all engineers in economically 
using the materials and forces of nature 
for the benefit of man. 
MANSFIELD MERRIMAN. 
LEHIGH UNIVERSITY. 
THE DEVONIAN SYSTEM IN CANADA.* 
Ie 
To the student of the early literature of 
the Paleozoic rocks, and especially to the 
paleontologist, the name of William Lons- 
dale will always be associated with. the De- 
vonian System. 
Although the term Devonian was first 
definitely proposed by Sedgwick and Murch- 
ison in a paper read April, 1839, and pub- 
lished in the fifth volume of the second series 
of Transactions of the Geological Society of 
London, the authors of this paper are care- 
ful to state (1) that ‘“‘ Mr. Lonsdale, after 
an extensive examination of the fossils of 
South Devon, had pronounced them, more 
than a year ago, to form a group intermedi- 
ate between the Carboniferous and Silurian 
systems,’”’ and (2) that ‘‘the previous con- 
clusions of Mr. Lonsdale * * * led the 
way to their proposed classification of the 
Cornish and Devonian formations.” 
Lonsdale, himself, in another paper 
printed in the same volume, distinctly 
claims that his suggestion, on the evidence 
of their fossils, that the South Devon lime- 
stones are ‘‘ of an intermediate age between 
the Carboniferous and Silurian systems, 
* Address of the Vice-President and Chairman of 
Section E—Geology and Geography—of the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science, Colum- 
bus Meeting, August, 1899. 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Vou. X. No, 247. 
and consequently of the age of the old red 
sandstone,” was first made in December, 
1837. §S. P. Woodward, in the preface to 
the first part of his ‘Manual of the Mollusca,’ 
dated March, 1856, speaks of Lonsdale as 
his “friend and master, the founder of the 
Devonian system in geology.” 
Yet so lately asin August, 1897, Mr. Marr 
is stated to have said* that ‘‘ the Devonian 
system had been founded on stratigraphical 
grounds by Murchison and Sedgwick, and 
on paleontological grounds by Lonsdale 
and Etheridge.” Surely it would have 
been more correct to have said that the ex- 
istence of the Devonian as a distinct 
geological system was first indicated by 
Lonsdale in 1837 on purely paleontological 
evidence, and subsequently confirmed by 
Sedgwick and Murchison in 1839 on strati- 
graphical considerations. 
However this may be, rocks of Devonian 
age have been discovered at various times 
in almost every province and district of the 
Dominion, and it is thought that a brief 
summary of the history of these discoveries 
and of the present state of our knowledge 
of the Devonian rocks of Canada, from a 
paleontologist’s point of view, may be of in- 
terest on this occasion. In accordance with 
long usage in Canada, the line of demarca- 
tion between the Silurian and Devonian 
systems in this address will be drawn at the 
base of the Oriskany sandstone. It willalso 
be convenient to consider the information 
that has so far been gained about the De- 
vonian rocks of Canada in geographical or- 
der, from east to west, under the three fol- 
lowing heads, viz.: (1) The Maritime 
Provinces and Quebec; (2) Ontario and 
Keewatin, and (3) Manitoba and the North- 
west Territories. 
I, THE MARITIME PROVINCES AND QUEBEC. 
Nova Scotia.—In a memoir accompanying 
a geological map of Nova Scotia, by Dr. 
* Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of Lon- 
don, Vol. LIII., page 460. 
