May 9, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



745 



A. Julien, chairman, ijresidiug. Tliis being 

 the annual meeting of the Section, the first 

 business of the evening was the election of 

 officers for the ensuing year. Professor E. 

 E. Dodge nominated Professor J. J. Steven- 

 son for chairman and Dr. E. O. Hovey for 

 secretary. On motion of George P. Kunz, W. 

 H. J. Sieberg was directed by unanimous vote 

 of the Section to cast one affirmative ballot 

 for the nominees. He did so and they were 

 declared elected. 



The following program was then offered: 



George P. Kunz made an exhibition of 

 specimens illustrating the finding of epidote, 

 grossularite, garnet and twinned crystals of 

 quartz of the Japanese type, associated with 

 chalcopyrite, malachite and other ores of cop- 

 per in a contact vein in limestone in the 

 Green Monster Mining Co.'s mine near Solzer, 

 Prince of Wales' Island, Alaska. 



'The Centenary of John Playf air's Defense 

 of James Button's Theory of the Pormation 

 River Valley' : Memorials by Professors J. J. 

 Stevenson, J. P. Kemp and R. E. Dodge. 



Professor Stevenson, after speaking of the 

 conditions prevailing in British geology prior 

 to the publication of Hutton's memoir in 

 1Y85, gave briefly the characteristic features 

 of Hutton's doctrines, and accounted for the 

 ease with which his work could be misunder- 

 stood and misinterpreted. He described the 

 conflict to which the memoir led, and em- 

 phasized the bitterness of those who opposed 

 the doctrine on theological grounds. The 

 preparation of Playfair's work was due as 

 miich to a desire to defend Hutton as to sup- 

 port his theory. Playf air appealed to those 

 opponents whose knowledge of the theory had 

 been derived chiefly from attacks made upon 

 it. Por them he showed that the theory was 

 beautiful, symmetrical and in no sense in- 

 consistent with the Scriptures. In dealing 

 with the other class of opponent, led by Kir- 

 wan and DeLuc, he used vigorous language 

 exposing their ignorance and insincerity, and 

 denouncing the virulence with which they had 

 given a theological turn to the controversy. 

 In defending Hutton's theory, Playfair 

 brought his ovsm great resources to bear, now 

 correcting errors, now elaborating the doe- 



trine, and in some places hardly anticipating 

 some of the great works of later days. 



The inviting style gained many readers for 

 Playfair's book, among them Greenough and 

 his associates, who founded the Geological 

 Society of London, that theory might be re- 

 placed by observation. Hutton's theory ob- 

 tained final triumph in 1830, when Lyell 

 published his 'Principles.' Playfair's work 

 hastened the birth of geology as now under- 

 stood by a full quarter of a century, and 

 finally divorced our science from cosmogony. 



Professor Kemp's memorial was more in the 

 nature of a review of Hutton's personal his- 

 tory. He said in part : James Hutton was 

 born in 3826, and, after his school and uni- 

 versity course, entered a lawyer's office to 

 prepare for the bar. He disliked the law, how- 

 ever, and gave up the study after a year. Be- 

 ing greatly interested in chemistry, he took 

 up the study of medicine, attending lectures 

 at Edinburgh and Paris and taking his de- 

 gree at Leyden in 1749. The career of a 

 physician did not attract him much, after 

 all his preparation, and in 1752 he went to 

 Norfolk to learn agriculture. There his 

 mind first turned definitely to mineralogy 

 and geology. In 1754 he settled on his ances- 

 tral estates in Berwickshire, where he re- 

 mained fourteen years, with occasional visits 

 to Edinburgh and more distant parts of the 

 kingdom. In 1768 he gave up country life 

 and removed to Edinburgh to devote him- 

 self entirely to the study of geology and kin- 

 dred sciences. His untiring industry enabled 

 him to accomplish a marvelous amount of 

 work in chemistry and finally to elaborate his 

 essays in geology, revolutionizing that sci- 

 ence and, with the elucidation given his work 

 by Playfair's 'Illustrations of the Huttonian 

 Theory of the Earth,' raising it to the high 

 plane which it has occupied ever since. 

 Modern geology dates from the publication in 

 the spring of 1802 of John Playfair's expla- 

 nation, elaboration and defense of Hutton's 

 theories. 



Professor Dodge, in his memorial of Play- 

 fair, said in brief: 



To James Hutton we owe many funda- 

 mental truths now recognized in physiography. 



