252 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 111. 



Sec. R. S., J. K. Green, F. R. S.; F. 0. 

 Bower, F. R. S.; A. C. Haddon, D. Sc, C; 

 S. Sherrington, F. R. S.; A. H. Miers, 

 F. R. S.; W. A. Herdman, F. R. S.; S. P. 

 Thompson, F. R. S.; S. H. Vines, F. R. S.; 

 A. G. Vernon Harcourt, F. R. S.; C. Le- 

 Ifeve Foster, F. R. S.; Mr. J. Scott Keltic, 

 W. H. Preece, F. R. S.; Wi H. Gaskell, 

 P. R. S. 



It is the intention of the Local Secre- 

 taries to issue invitations to a large number 

 of representative foreign men of science to 

 attend the meeting, and it is hoped that a 

 number of these will accept. The presence 

 of foreign scientific men has been a special 

 feature of many of the meetings in recent 

 years, and this has greatly increased the in- 

 terest of the members and public in the As- 

 sociation, while it has given the latter a 

 semi-international character. The Local 

 Committee desire that the Toronto meeting- 

 shall be largely an international one, and 

 they have welcomed the provision made by 

 the Council of the Association whereby the 

 fellows and the members of the American 

 Association are given for 1897 the same 

 standing as old members of the British As- 

 sociation, that is, they will on joining be 

 required to pay $5 only, instead of $10, the 

 amount exacted for new members. The 

 officers of the American Association also 

 have been made Honorary Members of the 

 British Association. The presence of these 

 and the attendence of from forty to fifty 

 Continental (European) men of science will 

 doubtless do much to realize the hopes of 

 those who advocate the formation of an 

 International Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science. In any case it will serve 

 to widen the sympathies of the scientific 

 men of the British Empire and of the 

 Anglo-Saxon Republic. The local commit- 

 tee on the other hand will endeavor to 

 make the meeting an extremely pleasant 

 one for all the visitors. 



The provisional program of the daily 



agenda of the meeting will be published in 

 Science in a few weeks. 



A. B. Macallum. 



GEOLOGV AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 



The address of the President, Mr. J. E. 

 Marr, was an eloquent and powerful appeal 

 for the systematic pursuit of minute strati- 

 graphical investigation. While petrology 

 may be largely claimed by the Germans, 

 paleontology by the French, and physical 

 geology by the Americans, detailed stra- 

 tigraphy has been much followed in Britain 

 from the days of William Smith to the 

 time of its present exponents, amongst 

 whom we reckon Lapworth, Buckman, 

 and, he might have added, himself. 



Apart from the accurate unravelling of 

 physical structure and the consequent cor- 

 rect knowledge of earth historj^ which thus 

 becomes possible, the President referred to 

 a number of almost unforeseen results, 

 which could only have been obtained when 

 the succession of strata was studied in 

 minute detail and the minor divisions of 

 the rocks laid down on maps of sufficient 

 scale. The detection of small faults and 

 their relation to physical features and to 

 denudation, the identity of ancient rocks 

 and modern deposits, the history of coral 

 reefs, the origin of coal seams, the geog- 

 raphy of former periods, the distribution of 

 ancient climates, the direction and nature 

 of earth movement and its effect on the 

 position and structure • of igneous rocks, 

 even the historj' of the crj^stalline schists 

 — all these branches had received or 

 might be expected to receive help from 

 this line of enquiry. Dealing with the 

 more immediate bearing of stratigraphical 

 research on earth history and evolution 

 and the phj^logeny of organisms, he referred 

 especially to the work of Barrande, Wal- 

 oott, and Matthew on trilobites, of Lap- 

 worth on graptolities, of Beecher on 



