1897.] International Geological Congress. 409 
Congress, having been allowed to pass without ono wing to the 
fear of the cholera which had invaded Southern France. 
The fourth Congress was held in London in 1888, the fifth 
in Washington in 1891, and the sixth in Zürich, Switzerland, 
in 1894. 
At the latter a special committee was appointed to select 
the topics which should occupy the attention of the members 
of the Congress. These topics have not yet been announced, 
but the reports of the committees on the unification of 
nomenclature, that of the committee on the production of a 
geological map of Europe (of which several parts have been 
issued since the Zürich Congress), and: the special committees 
appointed by the last Congress; one under Prince Roland 
Bonaparte, on glacial phenomena, another under Prof. Michel 
Levy on petrography, and a third under Emm. de Margerie on 
bibliography (which has issued a valuable volume) will furnish 
plenty of material to occupy the five days of the meeting from 
the 28th of August to the 4th of September. 
Preceding the session three contemporaneous excursions 
will be made. One of about 350 miles from St. Petersburg 
into Finland, one a little shorter into Esthonia, and a long 
excursion of 2300 miles lasting twenty-eight days over a most 
interesting part of the Ural Mountains on the borders of Asia 
as far as Ekaterineburg on the sixtieth degree of east longitude 
(east of the entire continent of Africa and about on the merid- 
ian of Mauritius). 
After the Congress another choice of excursions will be made 
from Moscow SE., S., or SW. through Southern Russia in 
Europe to Wladikavkaz, where the three parties reunited 
will pass over the military road crossing the great Caucasus, 
and after visiting Baku, Batoum and other places, and travers- 
ing the Black Sea to Kertch and Yalta dismiss at Sebastopol 
on October 5th. The longest of these attractive excursions will 
not be less than 2700 miles. 
Such a stupendous scale of entertaining visiting geologists 
is without precedent, and if the war clouds of the Levant but 
disperse, a long stride will have been gained by western 
savants in an understanding of the geological enigmas of 
European Russia. PERSIFOR FRAZER. 
