OcTOBER 13, 1899. ] % 
He showed that extreme cold does not in- 
terfere with their power of germination. 
The Association will meet next year at 
Bradford, commencing on Wednesday, Sep- 
tember 5th, with Sir William Turner as 
president. The meeting of 1901 will be 
at Glasgow, and the following meeting will 
probably be in Ireland. 
ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE GEO- 
LOGICAL SECTION OF THE BRITISH 
ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADV ANCE- 
MENT OF SCIENCE.* 
Amone the many questions of great the- 
oretical 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 his- 
tory. The various schools which have suc- 
cessively arisen—Cataclysmal, Uniformi- 
tarian, 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 dif- 
ferent 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 de- 
clared to be flatly opposed to the teach- 
ings of natural philosophy. Since that 
period the discussion then started regard- 
ing the age of the Earth and the value 
of geological time has continued with vary- 
ing animation. Evidence of the most mul- 
tifarious kind has been brought forward, 
and arguments of widely different degrees 
of validity have been pressed into service 
both by geologists and paleontologists 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 gen- 
* Dover meeting, September, 1899. 
SCIENCE. 
513 
eral agreement has been arrived at in re- 
gard to the matters im dispute. The pres- 
ent interval of comparative quietude seems 
favorable 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 some- 
what international occasion like this pres- 
ent 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 dis- 
cussion has impressed upon my own mind, 
and to point a moral which, as it seems to 
me, we geologists may take home to our- 
selves 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 sym- 
pathy and cooperation among geologists all 
over the world. <A lasting service will be 
rendered to our seience if by well-concerted 
effort we can place geological dynamics and 
geological chronology on a broader and 
firmer basis of actual experiment and meas- 
urement than has yet been Jaid. 
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 maintained 
towards this subject by some of the early 
fathers of the science. Among these pio- 
neers none has left his mark more deeply 
graven on the foundations of modern geol- 
ogy than James Hatton. To him, more 
than to any other writer of his day, do we 
owe the doctrine of the high antiquity of 
our globe. No one before him had ever 
seen so clearly the abundant and impres- 
sive proofs of this remote antiquity re- 
corded in the rocks of the earth’s crust. 
In these rocks he traced the operation of 
the same slow and quiet processes which he 
observed to be at work at present in grad- 
ually transforming the face of the existing 
