470 Scientific Intelligence. 



terior Cenozoic were referred back to the Sub-committees making 

 them," but not for any changes, except such as the "Reporters " 

 might make. I was not aware in January that such votes had 

 passed, nor that any of the reports were beyond amendment, 

 and learned of it first through a letter from the Secretary in 

 March. Major Powell addressed a communication on the sub- 

 ject, dated March 27th, to Professor Hall, protesting against 

 such a ruling, and in opposition to other actions of the Commit- 

 tee, and at the same time resigned his connection with it. For 

 like reasons, I did not attend the April meeting. 



Finally, at the April meeting, it was voted that no copies of 

 the published report should be delivered before September 17th, 

 or in other words that the printed report with its final addi- 

 tions should be kept from the members of the Committee until 

 the day of meeting of 'the Congress in London. And so it 

 was: on the 17th, punctually, the first copies reached me in 

 New Haven. 



Under such partisan management, the conclusions in the 

 printed reports of the several Sub-committees were not likely to 

 represent fairly American geological opinions. It is true that in 

 connection with each of them a large display is made of the names 

 of the members of the Sub-committees, and of all of them in each 

 case, as if they were alike responsible for the contents, and as if 

 the members had met, at least once, and consulted together, 

 read the last emendations and signed the document. But in this it 

 gives a very wrong impression. My name is on two of the Sub- 

 committees, but has no right to a place on either, although I 

 gave assent to the request ; for I was informed of. no meeting of 

 the Sub-committee for consultation, and joined in none, and gave 

 my signature to nothing except the letters which I, like many 

 others not of the Committees, wrote in answer to questions. In 

 fact, as above shown, changes after the January meeting were 

 made impossible except by the Reporter. I received a proof of 

 the report on the Lower Paleozoic, but returned it without any 

 words of approval and only a few on the Taconic question. Fur- 

 ther, this report, as finally published, contains what was not in 

 that proof ; it is decidedly the report of the Reporter, who had 

 been made the " final judge of the manner in which communica- 

 tions received should be used," not the Committee's report ; and 

 the same is true in some other cases. The views of Mr. C. D. 

 Walcott are unfairly presented with great injustice to him, 

 although he stands as an associate member of the Sub-committee, 

 responsible as much as the rest for its Report. 



Five hundred copies of the Report, of the American Commit- 

 tee were published. It is now in the hands of the Secretary of the 

 London meeting of the Congress, awaiting a second publication 

 as if the expression of the views of the majority of American geol- 

 ogists. Its right to appear in the volume of Proceedings of 

 the Congress for 1888 should be seriously considered if it is not 

 already too late. J. d. d. 



