1897.] Geology and Paleontology. 525 
17th (29th) and August 23d (Septemher 4th) an excursion of one and 
a half days will be made to the cascade of Imatra. 
As to the scientific questions which it is proposed to elucidate at the 
7th Session of the Congress, the Committee on Organization has put it- 
self in communication with Professors Capellini and Dewalque, Presi- 
dent and Secretary of the permanent commission of the Congress (a 
commission charged with elaborating preliminarily the questions which 
it will be desirable to submit to the discussion of the Congress) as well 
as with several geologists of Western Europe and America. 
In consideration of the answers received, the Committee on Organi- 
zation has the honor to propose the following programme of the labor of 
the Congress. 
On reviewing the work of the preceding Congresses, the Committee 
on Organization has observed that all the sessions which have followed 
that of London have lost sight of the propositions of the commission 
for the unification of the nomenclature, elaborated in the meetings at 
Geneva (1886) and at Manchester (1887), and announced by the Sec- 
retary of this commission in these terms : 
“The commission on the uniformity of nomenclature thought it of 
importance before going further, to adopt certain principles of a 
mature to serve as a guide in the discussion of systems of classification, 
and it adopted the following theses.” 
“I. The divisions of the first order should have an universal value, 
and should be based upon Ae ant characters sufficiently gen- 
eral to be applied to the whole ear 
“ II. The sub-groups which are aad will be necessarily defined 
by the characters which are common to the systems of which they are 
formed. They should have an almost universal value.’ [In the 
thought of the commission these sub-groups were the Jurassic and the 
Cretaceous. The meeting at Manchester having rejected these sub- 
groups, this thesis II disappears from the programme]. 
“ III. Besides the systems shall have a very general value. Their 
paleontological characters should indicate an organic evolution, partic- 
ularly characterized by the study of pelagic animals.” 
“TV. In order that a division should be erected into a system, it is 
desirable that the succession of pelagic fauna show itself susceptible of 
well marked sub-divisions.” 
“V. The divisions of a system ought to have an European or equiv- 
alent value. Each stage ought to be characterized by a pelagic fauna 
sufficiently distinct.” 
