Sept. 21, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



3^5 



Congress is much indebted. We have unfortunately to 

 deplore the death of one of these, M. Charles Fontannes, 

 and we lose by this blow the advantage of his long ex- 

 perience and his valuable assistance. 



As usual, our discussions are carried on in French, as 

 in the diplomatic world, but it is to be hoped that 

 friendly feeling will be better preserved here than some- 

 times happens in the other case, where councils have 

 not always avoided strife. If I may be allowed to speak 

 after a personal experience of about half a century, a 

 most cordial feeling between us English geologists and 

 our fellow-workers and friends beyond the sea has been 

 the normal condition during those long years. May 

 these open and friendly relations still remain the portion 

 of science both now and in the future. 



These friendly manifestations were, however, only 

 occasional, and there was little personal exchange of 

 ideas. But of late, instead of the discussion ofdispui.ed 

 questions by each nationality separately, the happy 

 thought has been hit upon of submitting questions which 

 concern all to the arbitration of this General Council. 

 In this way the various national centres of our science, 

 each of which has its local shade of character and special 

 experience, are able to combine their results in a much 

 broader and more uniform manner than if each were 

 separately to follow out its own ideas based on a more 

 limited set of observations. Nevertheless, in giving to 

 our science the uniformity of terms and of classification 

 which are so necessary to it, we must be careful not to 

 subject it to bonds which clasp it too tightly and which, 

 instead of developing, may even retard its progress. It 

 is advisable that the bonds should be sufficiently elastic 

 to adapt themselves to the rapid development which we 

 must expect in geological knowledge. It is very desirable, 

 it is even highly necessary, that we should be in agree- 

 ment with regard to the colours and symbols to be 

 employed for the various beds, rocks, and irregularities 

 which we find in the earth's crust, but petrology is still 

 far from being established on firm foundations, and the 

 synchronism of beds between even neighbouring 

 countries is not always easy to determine with accuracy, 

 and much less between countries far apart. Let us there- 

 fore endeavour to avoid the error of congresses of arro- 

 gating to themselves an infallibility which is very little 

 in accord with the progress of science. 



And now I would say in a few words what the Congress 

 has already accomplished, and what remains to be done. 

 At Bologna M. Capellini gave the history of the Con- 

 gress so well that there is no need for me to touch upon 

 it, unless it be to remind you that the idea of the Con- 

 gress had its origin in America at the Philadelphia Exhi- 

 bition in 1876, and no doubt this idea, like that of the 

 Exhibition itself, was only the expression of the desire 

 which had been making itself felt for some time of treat- 

 ing certain questions of science and art, not only in what 

 we might call a national family meeting, but in a cosmo- 

 politan assembly — to deal with the great questions which 

 concern all mankind as belonging to the whole civilised 

 world, and, in order to discuss them, to make of the 

 various nationalities a brotherhood founded on their 

 interests and their common welfare. 



Congress of Paris.- — At the first Congress held at 

 Paris in 1878, the primary questions of nomenclature 

 and classification were sketched out, as well as the ren- 

 dering of geological works uniform in the matter of 

 colours and symbols, so that the signification should be 

 alike for all countries. 



The idea which was well received at first was to make 

 use of the solar spectrum, and to adopt the three primary 

 colours, red, blue, and yellow, for the three main divisions 

 of Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary rocks ; the subdivi- 

 sions of the second order should be distinguished by 

 shades of these colours, and those of the third order by 

 cross-hatchings of the same colours. But this scale was 

 afterwards found too limited, and at Bologna as at Berlin 

 several modifications and complementary colours were 

 introduced into it, still, however, keeping somewhat to the 

 original idea. As a corollary, it was suggested that the 

 labels of fossils ought to be, as is already the case in 

 many museums, of the same colour as that used for the 

 bed from which the fossils are derived, so that both the 

 horizon and the period might be seen at a glance. 



As to the question of rendering the nomenclature of 

 the great divisions of the earth's crust uniform, it was 

 felt that in the first place it is essential to be agreed upon 

 the terms employed, and it was seen that a geological 

 dictionary containing the etymology or source of each 

 geological name, the synonymy in the other languages, a 

 definition in French, and an illustrative figure as in 

 technological dictionaries would be most useful. The 

 publication of such a work, which ought to be at least in 

 six languages, has been strongly supported. Finally the 

 study of these questions was referred to International 

 Committees to report upon to the meeting of the Congress 

 at Bologna. 



With regard to the classification of strata, memoirs 

 have been received on the Pre-Cambrian strata, and on 

 the Palaeozoic rocks of North America, on the Car- 

 boniferous strata and the Permian, in different parts of 

 Europe and in America, and on the relations of the 

 horizons of extinct vertebrata in North America and in 

 Europe. The two last memoirs were accompanied by 

 valuable lists of invertebrate, plants, and reptiles of 

 various countries. These memoirs have raised very 

 important stratigraphical and palasontological questions 

 with regard to the wide distribution of families and 

 genera. Each of the faunas of the primary divisions of 

 geological time has been in part recognised as occurring 

 equally in the two great continents, in Europe and in North 

 America — and Mr. Cope has been led to ask himself 

 whether the organic types are natives of a special 

 centre from which they have spread, or whether the same 

 types of generic structure have appeared independently at 

 different points of the earth ; and in the latter case whether 

 they are contemporaneous or of different periods. These 

 synchronic appearances form a subject full of mystery 

 from whatever side we view them. The geological 

 record is at present too incomplete for us to solve the 

 problem. In every country there are gaps which can 

 only be filled by the aid of observations continued in 

 other parts of the world. To encourage these observa- 

 tions is one of the most useful functions of the Congress. 

 There has also been discussed the classification of the 

 quaternary deposits in relation with the remarkable 

 history of the grottoes of central France, the Glacial 

 deposits and the Dunes of Holland, the Tertiary beds of 

 Portugal, which are limited to the Miocene and Pliocene ; 

 the Tertiary eruption rocks of Hungary, from the point 

 of view of discovering whether there is any relation 

 between the mineralogical constitution and the relative 

 age of different trachytic types. 



The Congress has also dealt with questions of higher 

 physics, such as those of the deformations and fractures 

 of the earth's crust, the alignment of faults and of moun 



