524 The American Naturalist. [June, 
GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. 
The International Congress returns to its proper mission. 
—The iollowing is part of the last circular of the council of the Inter- 
national Geological Congress. One of the two specific objects which 
the Congress originally set out to accomplish was the modification of 
the nomenclature, but the meetings gradually drifted away from the 
work to the more entertaining occupation of listening to lectures by 
distinguished savants on various themes. The Council of the coming 
Congress recalls that body to its duty with abruptness, and reproduces 
the essential parts of the reports of the Committee employed to study 
the subject made at the Committee’s sessions at Geneva and Manches- 
ter in 1886 and 1887. 
If half of the questions here enumerated but receive the approval 
of the coming Congress, a boon will have been conferred on long suffer- 
ing students 
Third Ohi International Geological Congress, 7th Session, Rus- 
sia, 1897 : 
The Committee of Organization of the 7th International Geological 
Congress has decided at its session of February 21st (March 5th) to 
dispose in the following manner of the time which the members of the 
Congress will pass at St. Petersburg between the 17th (29th) of Aug- 
ust and August 23d (September 4th). 
From 9 to 10 A. M., will be held the session of the Council of the 
Congress. 
From 10 to 2 P. M., discussion [in the Congress Ed.] of the questions 
which will be proposed in the programme of the Committee of Or- 
ganization. 
From 2 to 3 P. M., visit to the museums and the exposition. 
From 3 to 5 P. M., communications of a general character an- 
nounced in advance to the Committee on Organization.’ 
It has been decided to group these communications in such a man- 
ner as not to embrace in a single day more than one of the branches of 
geological science. 
After the session of the Congress it is proposed to make excursions 
in the environs of St. Petersburg. In the interval between August 
1 Up to the present time several Geologists have expressed the desire to make 
communications of this kind. 
