BULLETIN OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 

 Vol. 5, pp. 101-116 January 27, 1894 



SOME RECENT DISCUSSIONS IN GEOLOGY 

 Annual Address by the President, Sir J. William Dawson 

 {Read before the Society December 27, 1893) 



CONTENTS 



Page 



Introduction 101 



Pre-Cambrian Rocks 101 



Mountain-making 103 



Uniformitarianism 105 



Coal-making 107 



Relation of Vegetation to continental Movements 108 



Glacial Period HO 



Post- Pleistocene continental Movements 113 



Predacial IMan 115 



Introduction. 



Our science has been characterized as one whose goal today is its 

 starting-point tomorrow. Nothing, therefore, can be more suitable to an 

 occasion of this kind than a glance at some of those questions at present 

 most actively discussed, and on which we have Avithin the last few months 

 been reading the arguments and conclusions of some of our ablest workers. 

 We may even venture to make some modest suggestions as to the manner 

 of possible settlement of these questions, and thus aid in clearing the way 

 for those advances which in the near future must leave our present stand- 

 point far in the rear. Such a review must necessarily be discursive and 

 fragmentary— a sort of conglomerate in its material, but some consistency 

 may be given to it by regarding its several topics in their relation to the 

 foundation and building up of our continents, one of the great leading 

 points of geologic investigation. 



Pre-Cambrian Rocks. 



Beginning with those ancient Archean or Eozoic formations, which are 

 the foundat'ion-stones of the earth, and in nearly every part of the world 



XIV-BuM.. Geol. Soc. Am., Voi,. 5, 1893. ^01) 



