240 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IV., No. 84. 



groups made oat in the north-west ; that is to say, 

 the hydro-mica and magnesian schists, and the car- 

 bonaceous and arenaceous black slates. 



This leaves two series of rocks untouched by the 

 scope of either the Huronian or the Taconic, as these 

 systems were at first defined ; namely, the mica- 

 schist group, and the granite and gneiss with gabbro 

 group. In the term ' Montalban,' proposed for these 

 groups by Dr. Hunt, the two are united ; and the con- 

 stant distinctness which they seem to maintain is 

 not recognized. The granite and gabbro group has 

 affinities with the overlying cupriferous rocks, and 

 perhaps, as Irving has suggested, should be consid- 

 ered the base of that series; whereas the mica-schist 

 group has, without exception, been assigned to the 

 same system and age as the underlying groups. The 

 granite and gabbro group has likewise been designated 

 differently. The gabbro has been called Laurentian, 

 Labradorian, and Norian; and the granite and gneiss 

 have received, under one of their modified conditions, 

 the special designation Arvonian. Professor Win- 

 chell thought he had already shown that the Arvo- 

 nian rocks are interstratified with the cupriferous, 

 and are modified sediments of that series. Instead 

 of being near the bottom of the ' Huronian ' in the 

 north-west, they overlie all the groups that have been 

 assigned to the Huronian by Irving, and constitute a 

 part of the great series of younger gneisses, which 

 by Brooks has been marked as the ' youngest Hu- 

 ronian.' 



It is evident, that at present it is an impossible un- 

 dertaking, to assign the groups of the crystalline rocks 

 of the north-west to any of the terranes that have been 

 named farther east, without violating somebody's sys- 

 tem of nomenclature. Respecting the horizon known 

 as ' Laurentian,' there is an approach to unanimity 

 and agreement. This, however, consists more in a 

 tacit consent to style the lowest known rocks Lau- 

 rentian, than in any agreement among geologists as 

 to the nature and composition of the strata. The 

 Taconic of Emmons has been generally ignored. The. 

 original Huronian has grown from the dimensions of 

 a single group (the quartzite and marble group), so 

 as to include all the crystalline rocks lying above that 

 group, spreading from the Laurentian to the un- 

 changed sediments of the upper Cambrian. This 

 has in some cases become so obviously wrong, and 

 has included groups of rocks so plainly extra-Huro- 

 nian, that a double and triple nomenclature has been 

 applied to a part of these upper rocks. These new 

 names, with the exception of the name Montalban, 

 seem to be of value only as regional designations; the 

 strata which they represent being igneous or meta- 

 morphic, and hence liable to be wanting in some 

 places, and to be non-crystalline in others. They fur- 

 ther complicate the stratigraphic nomenclature, since 

 they are probably only the locally modified lower 

 parts of the New- York system. 



In conclusion, the chief points brought out in this 

 discussion may be re-stated more concisely: 



1. The crystalline rocks of the north-west are com- 

 prised under six well-marked, comprehensive groups. 



2. The Taconic of Emmons, so named in 1842, and 



more correctly defined in 1846, included three of those 

 groups. 



3. The Huronian of Canada is the equivalent of 

 the lowest of the Taconic groups, and the perfect par- 

 allel of only the lowest of the groups in the north-west 

 that have been designated Huronian. 



4. The uppermost of the groups in the north-west 

 is local in its existence and exceptional in its charac- 

 ters, and has received, therefore, a variety of names. 



5. There are, therefore, confusion and conflict of 

 authority in the application of names to the crystal- 

 line rocks of the north-west. 



CATAGENESIS; OR, CREATION BY RET- 

 ROGRADE METAMORPHOSIS OF EN- 

 ERGY. 1 



The general proposition, that life has preceded 

 organization in the order of time, may be regarded as 

 established. It follows necessarily from the fact, that 

 the simple forms have, with few exceptions, pre- 

 ceded the complex in the order of appearance on the 

 earth. The history of the lowest and simplest ani- 

 mals will never be known, on account of their perish- 

 ability ; but it is a safe inference from what is known, 

 that the earliest forms of life were the rhizopods, 

 whose organization is not even cellular, and includes 

 no organs whatever. Yet these creatures are alive; 

 and authors familiar with them agree that they dis- 

 play, among their vital qualities, evidences of some 

 degree of sensibility. 



After recalling the proposition laid down years ago 

 by Lamarck, regarding the effect on structure of the 

 use and disuse of organs, the speaker explained kine- 

 togenesis as the production of animal structures by 

 animal movements; and archsestheticism as the doc- 

 trine that sensibility or consciousness has ever been 

 one of the primary factors in the evolution of animal 

 forms. The influence of motion on development is 

 involved in Spencer's theory of the origin of verte- 

 brae by strains; and the speaker maintained that the 

 various agencies mentioned by Lamarck as producing 

 change are simply stimuli to motion. 



In the present address he proposed to pursue the 

 question of the relation of sensibility to evolution, 

 and to consider some of the consequences which it 

 involves; though in the present early stage of the 

 subject he could only point out the logical conclu- 

 sions derivable from facts well established, rather 

 than any experimental discoveries not already known. 

 Those who object to the introduction of metaphysics 

 into biology must consider that they cannot logically 

 exclude the subject. As in one sense a function of 

 nervous tissue, mind is one of the functions of the 

 body. Its phenomena are everywhere present in the 

 animal kingdom. It is only want of familiarity with 

 the subject which can induce a biologist to exclude 

 the science of mind from the field. 



1 Abstract of an address delivered before the section of biology 

 of the American association for the advancement of science, at 

 Philadelphia, Sept. 4, by Prof. E. D. Cope, of Philadelphia, 

 vice-president of the section. 



