Sept. 7, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



237 



might subsequently be aided the determination of an atomic 

 weight on the model of one of the best masters, as a discipline 

 which could not fail to be impressive, and full of instruction. 



A number of papers, pamphlets and text-books have lately ap- 

 peared, professing to teach the principles of the science practically 

 and by new methods. Most of these turn out, upon inspection, to 

 be very old methods indeed, but there is a small residue of distinctly 

 original character, which are sure to attract, as they deserve, con- 

 siderable attention. The systems I refer to provide a series of 

 problems which the pupils are called upon to solve. According to 

 this plan the student is not allowed peaceably to examine the pro- 

 perties of oxygen or sulphur which he now sees for the first time. 

 He must weigh, and measure, and observe, and then infer. All 

 this coming at once upon the head of a beginner seems to me to be 

 well fitted to drive him to despair. 



I well remember the first experiment in chemistry I ever made. 

 It consisted in dissolving zinc in diluted sulphuric acid in an 

 evaporating dish, lighting with a match the bubbles of hydrogen as 

 they rose, and afterwards leaving the solution to crystallise. I 

 was about sixteen, and the bubbles of gas as well as the crystals I 

 afterwards got interested me very much. If at that time I had 

 been made to weigh the zinc and acid, and measure the hydrogen 

 with the object of answering some question about the composition 

 of zinc and hydrogen sulphates, I should have been pretty much in 

 the position of a boy ignorant of geometry shut up with the proposi- 

 tions of Euclid and ordered to give the demonstrations. 



I think when we recall such a fact as that Priestley, who dis- 

 covered oxygen in 1774, failed to the end of his days to under- 

 stand the process of combustion, and actually wrote, in 1800, a 

 pamphlet in defence of "phlogiston," we ought not to be surprised 

 when young people, though born a century later, fail to perceive at 

 once the full significance of facts to which they are introduced for 

 the first time. At the outset you cannot reasonably expect a young 

 student both to observe accurately and infer justly. These two 

 things must be kept separate at first, and for this reason among 

 others I believe that attempts to make young students verify for 

 themselves the fundamental propositions of chemistry will not be 

 successful. One has only to trace the origin of one's own convic- 

 tions in reference to any important fact or principle to perceive 

 that they very seldom spring into existence suddenly, but almost 

 always commence in vagueness and hesitation, acquiring consistency 

 and solidity only as the result of accumulated experience. 



I will not pretend to determine what may be included within the 

 wide circle of the functions of the British Association ; but I think 

 I cannot be mistaken in assuming that the advancement of science 

 is dependent in no small degree upon the provision for the efficient 

 teaching of science. I have traced an outline of what has been 

 done in the past, and have endeavoured to show in what respects 

 I think we are deficient at the present time. No matter how 

 ardent may be the aspirations, how earnest the endeavours of the 

 few, progress will be slow unless they are sustained by the sympathy 

 of the many. On one principle the public must surely insist, that 

 only those shall be allowed to teach who know. 



ABSTRACT OF THE ADDRESS TO THE GEOLOGICAL 

 SECTION OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, 



ByW. Boyd Dawkins, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., F.S.A., Professor 



of Geology and Paleontology in Owens College, 



President of the Section. 



Our science has made great strides during the last twenty-four 

 years, and she has profited much from the great development of her 

 sisters. The microscopic analysis of the rocks has opened out anew 

 field of research, in which physics and chemistry are in friendly 

 rivalry, and in which fascinating discoveries are being made almost 

 day by day as to metamorphism, and the crushing and shearing 

 forces brought to bear upon the cooling and contracting crust while 

 the earth was young. The deep-sea explorations have revealed the 

 structure and the deposits of the ocean abysses, and the depths sup- 

 posed to be without life, like the fabled deserts in the interior of 

 Africa, are now known to teem with varied forms glowing with the 

 richest colours. From a comparison of these deposits with the 

 stratified rocks we may conclude that the latter are marginal, and 

 deposited in depths not greater than 1,000 fathoms, or the shore end 

 of the Globigerina ooze, and most of them at a very much less 

 depth, and that consequently there is no proof in the geological 

 record of the ocean depths having ever been in any other than their 

 present places. 



In North America the geological survey of the Western States has 

 brought to light an almost unbroken series of animal remains, rang- 

 ing from the Eocene down to the Pleistocene Age. In these we 

 find the missing links in the pedigree of the Horse, and sufficient 



vidence of transitional forms to cause Professor Flower to restore 

 o its place in classification the order Ungulata of Cuvier. These 

 may be expected to occupy the energies of our kinsmen on the other 

 side of the Atlantic for many years, and to yield further proof of the 

 truth of the doctrine of evolution. The use of this word reminds 

 me how much we have grown since 1864, when evolution was under 

 discussion, and when biological, physical, and geological labora- 

 tories could scarcely be said to have existed in this country. Truly 

 may the scientific youth of to-day make the boast — 



'H/iets /aZv Trartpwv fxiy' a^idvoves eL ; xo/ie0' elvai — 



" We are much better off than our fathers were," while we, the 

 fathers, have the poor consolation of knowing that when they are 

 fathers their children will say the same of them. There is reason to 

 suppose that our science will advance more swiftly in the future than 

 it has in the past, because it has more delicate and precise methods 

 of research than it ever had before, and because its votaries are 

 more numerous than they ever were. 



In 1S64 the attention of geologists was mainly given to the in- 

 vestigations of the later stages of the Tertiary Period. The bent of 

 my pursuits inclines me to revert to this portion of geological 

 inquiry, and to discuss certain points which have arisen during the 

 last few years in connection with the classificatory value of fossils, 

 and the mode in which they may b; best used for the co-ordination 

 of strata in various parts of the world. 



The principle of homotaxy, first clearly defined by Professor 

 Huxley, has been fully accepted as a guiding principle in place of 

 synchronism or contemporaneity, and the fact of certain groups of 

 plants and animals succeeding one another in a definite order, in 

 countries remote from each other, is no longer taken to imply that 

 each was living in the various regions at the same time, but rather, 

 unless there be evidence to the contrary, that they were not. While, 

 however, there is a universal agreement on this point among geolo- 

 gists, the classificatory value of the various divisions of the vegetable 

 and animal kingdoms is still under discussion, and, as has been very 

 well put by my predecessor in this chair at Montreal, sometimes the 

 evidence of one class of organic remains points in one direction, 

 while the evidence of another class pom's in another and wholly dif- 

 ferent direction as to the geologicil horizon of the same rock. The 

 Flora, put into the witness-box by the botanist, says one thing, 

 while the Mollusca or the Vertebrata say another thing in the hands 

 of their respective counsel. There seems to be a tacit assumption 

 thit the various divisions of the organic world present the same 

 amount of variation in the rocks, and that consequently the evidence 

 of every part of it is of equal value. 



The cryptogamic flora of the later Primary rocks shows but slight 

 evidence of change. The forests of Britain and of Europe generally, 

 and of North America, were composed practically of the same 

 elements — Sigillaria, Calamites, and conifers allied to the Ginkho — 

 throughout the whole of the Carboniferous (16,336 feet in thickness 

 in Lancashire and Yorkshire) and Devonian rocks, and do not 

 present greater differences than those which are to be seen in the 

 existing forests of France and Germany. They evidently were con- 

 tinuous both in space and time, from their beginning in the Upper 

 Silurian to their decay and ultimate disappearance in the Permian 

 Age. 



The forests of the Secondary Period, consisting of various coni- 

 fers and cycads, also present slight differences as they are traced 

 upwards through the Triassic and Jurassic rocks, while remarkable 

 and striking changes took place in the fauna, which mark the divi- 

 sion of the formations into smaller groups. As the evidence stands 

 at present, the cycads of the Lias do not differ in any important 

 character from those of the Oolites or the Wealden, and the Salis- 

 buria in Yorkshire in the Liassic Age is very similar to that of the 

 Island of Mull in the Early Tertiary, and to that (Salisbitria 

 adiantifolia) now living in the open air in Kew Gardens. 



Nor do we find evidence of greater variation in the dicotyledonous 

 forests, from their first appearance in the Ceuomanian stage of the 

 Cretaceous rocks of Europe and America, through the whole of the 

 Tertiary Period down to the present time. In North America the 

 flora of the Dakota series so closely resembles the Meiocene of 

 Switzerland that Dr. Heer had no hesitation in assigning it in the 

 first instance to the Meiocene Age. 



In the Tertiary Period there is an unbroken sequence in the floras, 

 as Mr. Starkie Gardner has proved, when they are traced over many 

 latitudes, and most of the types still survive at the present day, but 

 slightly altered. If, however, Tertiary floras of different ages are 

 met with in one area, considerable differences are to be seen, due 

 to progressive alterations in the climate and altered distribution of 

 the land. As the temperature of the Northern Hemisphere became 

 lowered the tropical forests were pushed nearer and nearer to the 

 equator, and were replaced by plants of colder habit from the 

 northern regions, until ultimately, in the Pleistocene Age, the Arctic 



