Thomas Sterry Hunt. 147 
a leading authority on the subjects of which it treats. As 
the author himself states, this work and more especially 
the ‘‘ Crenitic’’ hypothesis developed in it, are “ the result 
of nearly thirty years of studies, having for their object to 
reconstruct the theory of the earth on the basis of a solid 
nucleus, to reconcile the existence of a solid interior with 
the flexibility of the crust, to find an adequate explanation 
of the universally contorted attitude of the older crystal- 
line strata, and at the same time to discover the laws which 
have governed the formation and the changing chemical 
composition of the stratiform crystalline rocks through 
successive geologic ages.” 
To Dr. Hunt we thus owe some of the earliest attempts 
to subdivide and classify in a scientific manner the strati- 
form crystalline rocks; a work to which he brought not 
only his studies throughout Canada and the United States, 
but also the results of enquiries conducted during repeated 
visits to the British Islands and to continental Kurope. In 
pursuing these studies and while reviewing and controvert- 
ing various hypotheses, including the igneous or plutonic, 
the metamorphic and the metasomatic, all of which he re- 
jected as irreconcilable with observed facts, and as violat- 
ing chemical theory, Dr. Hunt vindicated what he deemed 
the essential soundness of the still imperfect Wernerian 
aqueous View, and advanced, as its proper development and 
completion, his own crenitic hypothesis. According to this 
theory, the source of the various groups of crystalline rocks 
was ‘‘the superficial portion of a globe, once in a state of 
igneous fusion, but previously solidified from the centre. 
This portion, rendered porous by cooling, was permeated 
by circulating waters, which dissolved and brought to the 
surface during successive ages, after the manner of modern 
mineral springs, the elements of the various systems of 
crystalline rocks. These rocks thus mark progressive and 
necessary changes in the mineralogical evolution of the 
earth.” 
Dr. Hunt never abandoned the scientific pursuit of chem- 
istry and mineralogy. In the former science he summed 
