992 The American Naturalist. : [ October, 
This view of the comité fondateur has been adhered to in every one 
of the four sessions of the congress, held respectively in Paris, Bologna, 
Berlin, and London. 
In all these sessions the congress has called every member of the 
American committee who happened to be present to a seat in the 
council (with a single accidental — and has thus defined what 
it means by the ** comité fondate 
To sum up the case: (1) The ae Association appointed a 
committee to investigate a question. Instead of investigating and 
reporting, it proceeded to create a congress. 
(2) The congress created in turn this committee an integral part of 
its own governing body. 
(3) With the organization of the first congress the need of a com- 
mittee to inquire into the propriety of it ceased, but the American 
a ee changed this original ‘‘propriety’’ committee into 
f the congress, and has been con- 
stant! it,and adding to its number for eleven years. 
(4) The congress, by its action in receiving all the American Asso- 
ciation's additions into its council, has proclaimed that it is not the 
original members of the comité fondateur at Buffalo, but the member- 
ship of the committee representing the American Association before 
itself that it considers the comité fondateur. 
(5) This American committee has further taken the place of the national 
committees of other countries, and as such has collected information and 
published reports illustrating American opinion on geological subjects. 
It thus appears that the American committee has filled four róles, 
the first, or that of inquiry, ceasing as the other three began ; and for 
the proper fulfilment of the three simultaneous functions, which it has 
been exercising ever since 1878, it is amenable to three independent 
bodies. "That one which may claim priority of age (since the duty of 
investigation was rendered nugatory by the absolute establishment of 
the congress) is the congress itself, to which the committee's relations 
are those of a parent recognized as a member of its household ; next 
is the American Association, for which the committee bas appeared in 
the debates of the congress as a representative ; and last are the geologists 
af North America, whether members of the A. A. A. S. or not, of whom 
the committee has the right (in view of its past labors) to consider 
itself the mouth-piece. 
In the light of the foregoing facts, it remains to be decided what 
action this committee proposes for itself in the future. 
Shall it, as the national North American committee, set about the 
rn 
