128 
\ 
The subject has been considered at length and with 
much thoroughness by Dr. Richard Andree, in a late 
number of Globus (Bd. 64, No. 22). He analyzes the 
names of the constellation in many languages, and ex- 
plains its relation in primitive peoples to their calendars 
and agricultural procedures. He shows that among the 
most diverse races and in all parts of the globe, these 
stars have been chosen either to indicate the beginning 
of years or cycles, or to regulate festivals and recurrent 
ceremonies. 
One who has also given fruitful attention to this ques- 
tion is Mr. R. G. Haliburton, whose results, many of 
them not yet published, are spoken of by Dr. J. C. 
Hamilton in the last (fifth) Report of the Canadian 
Institute of Toronto. He brings together a mass of 
curious information concerning primitive beliefs about 
these stars. 
The question has special interest in American arche- 
ology. At the Anthropological Congress in Chicago last 
summer, Mrs. Zelia Nuttall read a paper in which she 
referred to the well-known fact that by these stars the 
Aztecs regulated their cycle of 52 years. If they had 
commenced their computation when at that season the 
Pleiades culminated at midnight, it would be about 
4000 years ago,—a deduction which gives rise to interest- 
ing speculations. 
WHAT IS ARCHAZAN? 
BY ALFRED C. LANE, HOUGHTON, L. S., MICHIGAN. 
WHEN in the issue of the ation for March 1, 1894, 
p. 163, I saw my friend Professor Tarr criticised for 
calling the Huronian Archzan, and saw the reviewer go 
on to state that the rocks in which magnetic iron ores 
mostly occur are not undoubted Archzan, I said, ‘‘ This 
is Zoo much.” 
The history of the words Azoic and Archean shows 
the irony of fate in scientific usage so well as to be worthy 
the attention of the readers of Sczence. 
The term Azoic was originally applied to all the pre- 
Silurian strata, at first including the intrusives.* Later 
Foster and Whitney excluded them and applied the term 
to the metamorphic group or formation,*—composed of 
““Gneiss, Mica and Hornblende Slate, Chlorite, Talcose 
and Argillaceous Slate, and Beds of Quartz and Sacchar- 
oidal Marble,’’—supposed to be the first detrital rocks, 
modified by heat. They expressly mention the associa- 
tion of magnetic iron ores with them,* and give Logan’s 
division into two groups, which they say they failed to 
recognize on the south shore of Lake Superior." The 
Azoic rocks included all rocks below the Potsdam,’ exist- 
ing as a geologic system in the Lake Superior region. 
Dana objected to the application of the term Azoic,° 
as a misnomer, since there are direct and indirect traces 
of life in the rocks to which it was applied, and proposed 
the term Archean instead. In his use of the term, 
Archean is a name applied to one of the four or five 
primary divisions of geologic time, co-ordinate with the 
term Paleozoic. In this he has been followed by Geikie 
and Leconte. From the text-books of these three men, 
probably ninety-nine per cent of living American geolo- 
gists have been taught. Moreover, Dana retained the 
1Van Hise, Archean and Algonkian, Bulletin No. 86, United States Geological 
Survey, 1892, p. 470; but compare Foster and Whitney, p. 3. 
2Foster and V ener Lake Superior, part ii., 1851, p. 2. 
37bid., p. 8. 
47é7d., p. 11; compare Van Hise, loc. cit., p. 470. 
5Tbid., p. 2. 
®Van Hise, loc. cit., pp. 304, 473- 
7Manual of Geology, 1880, p. r4o. 
®Summarized in Van Hise, loc. cit., p. 460. 
SCl ENG 
Vol. XXIII. No. 579 
term Azoic,’ applying it to the earlier part of the Archean 
time, and to the latter part applying the term ~Eozoic in 
his manual of geology, Archzozoic in a paper published 
in 1892." 
The arrangement in Dana's text-book seemed an 
admirable one, was widely adopted, and all seemed 
serene, when trouble arose. The first symptom of it 
appeared in a circular letter of the Director of the United 
States Geological Survey, wherein he suggested the divi- 
sion of Geologic time into fez periods, to which provisional 
names were given.” The name Archean was applied to a 
period below the Cambrian, co-ordinate with it, and 
separated from it by another period. 
No comment nor notice was made on this degradation 
of the rank of the word, and of course in a provisional 
scheme it was not necessary. “But when in pursuance of 
this letter the name Archean was formally applied to a 
time division earlier than the time of deposition of the 
clastic rocks older than the Cambrian, and co-ordinate 
with Cambrian," the mischief was done. ) 
The term Archean, introduced to replace Asoic as a 
misnomer, has been so changed in application by the United 
States Geological Survey as to include only rocks which cannot 
but be Azotc. 
There certainly could have been no life before the 
beginning of sedimentation. 3 
The only reason for this change, that I know of, is 
given by Van Hise in the following words :" 
‘““ As here used the term Archean is restricted to this 
fundamental complex. It is no longer possible to regard 
as a unit or treat together all pre-Cambrian rocks. The 
rocks included in the fundamental complex are every- 
where called Azoic or Archean. he  crystallines 
and semi-crystallines above this complex, often called 
Archean, must be distributed from the Devonian or later 
to the pre-Cambrian. It is clear that if Archzean is to 
remain a serviceable term it must be restricted to some 
unit. Such a unit is the fundamental complex, and to it 
this term is most appropriate.” 
Comment is hardly needful, in view of the fact that for 
some four hundred and seventy eight pages Professor 
Van Hise has been treating all the pre-Cambrian rocks 
together, and that, as he avers, ‘‘it is impossible to make 
a wholly satisfactory theoretical definition of the Archzan”’ 
(as he uses it). 
I should perhaps add that while I still think that the 
Archean will ‘‘remain a serviceable term,” if retained 
in the sense in which it was proposed, and is used by all 
the leading text-books, not only in America, but also in 
England (Geikie), and Germany (Credner and Neumayr) 
and is employed by the Neues Jahrbuch fiir Mineralogie, 
Geologie, etc. (as one of four or five divisions of geologic 
time co-ordinate wlth Paleozoic), I do not here question 
the appropriateness of its division, nor attempt to combat 
the arguments so ably urged by Van Hise” for the crustal 
or sub-crustal character of the fundamental complex. I 
merely cannot see why the time-division given by Dana 
is not satisfactory, and why the time previous to the forma- 
tion of clastics should not be called Azoic. Then for a 
parallel formation term, according to the principles of 
that dual nomenclature, rightly proposed by H. S. 
Williams, Van Hise’s term Basement Complex seems to 
me very appropriate. Possibly Basal, as somewhat 
shorter, and in adjectival form more correspondent 
with other terms, might be better. ‘The age of the Basal, 
so far as formed by subcrustal consolidation, might 
not be altogether Azoic, but it would all belong to one 
formation. 
*Tenth Annual Report of the Director, United States Geological Survey, 1890, p. 50, 
107bid., p. 66. i 
11Van Hise, loc. cit., p. 478. 
12Van Hise, American Journal of Geology, vol. i., p. 113, 
