Januaky 30, 1885. J 



SCIENCE, 



than at Washington, at Cambridge than at 

 Baltimore? The only way we can account 

 for this is in the undoubtedly freer social life 

 at the south, by which men are brought into 

 more frequent collision, with consequent in- 

 terchange of ideas ; and this would lead one 

 to conjecture, that, unless manners change, 

 Boston and Cambridge cannot regain pre- 

 eminence. 



It is all very well to say with a complacent 

 air that science does not depend on the public, 

 and that her great discoveries are made far 

 from the noisy world. It is only in exceed- 

 ingly rare instances that the\ T have been made 

 by men whose scientific ardor was not born 

 of contact with living teachers. And men who 

 seek wisdom for themselves alone defraud the 

 public ; especially in these latter clays, when 

 it is this very public that is to furnish their 

 successors in the investigation of nature. The 

 public covets no man's scientific gold or ap- 

 parel, but has a not altogether unwholesome 

 yearning for a sight of it ; and it is a travest}' 

 of the scientific spirit to keep it from view. 

 Science ma}* be a mild hermit : she can never 

 be a miser. 



But to return to Boston. The decadence 

 noticed within the last ten years cannot be at- 

 tributed to anv change of general manners in 

 the modern -Athenian,' but must be sought 

 in other local causes, and may be largely ap- 

 parent. The increasing proportion of scien- 

 tific men residing outside of Boston itself has 

 much to do. during the colder and stormier 

 season, with the small attendance at meetings 

 which it takes an hour's travel to reach ; and 

 yet it is rare to find at any scientific gathering 

 in Boston, even if it be an attractive feast, any 

 less proportion than one-half from Cambridge. 

 The university, too, makes larger and larger 

 demands upon its servants ; and the extrane- 

 ous attractions of Cambridge itself, not to 

 mention those of Boston, absorb more and 

 more the time and strength of those who were 

 wont in forme>- years to add to the interest of 

 the scientific meetings in Boston. Their ex- 

 ample is followed by their juniors, and Boston 

 itself fails to make good its own loss. 



THE GEOLOGY OF THE SCOTTISH HIGH- 

 LANDS. 



Tup: geology of the Highlands of Scotland 

 has a peculiar interest for American students, 

 first, because that region has many resem- 

 blances, both stratigraphical and lithological, 

 to parts of eastern North America; and, sec- 

 ond, because therein the same great ques- 

 tions which have been raised and settled with 

 regard to New-England rocks, have there also 

 been debated and finally solved, with similar 

 results. There is in north-western Scotland 

 an ancient gneissic series, which the present 

 writer, in 1855, pointed out as the equivalent 

 of our older gneiss, as seen in the Laurentides 

 and the Adirondacks. Resting upon this Lau- 

 rentian or Hebridean gneiss in Scotland, there 

 is found to the east a group of quartzites and 

 limestones containing a lower paleozoic fauna, 

 in part, at least, Cambrian in age ; while ap- 

 parently overlying these fossiliferous rocks, on 

 their eastern side, is a great series of gneisses 

 and mica schists, rising into hills which form 

 the western Highlands, extending south and 

 east, and covering an area of at least fifteen 

 thousand square miles. This whole region 

 was studied a quarter of a century since by 

 Murchison, aided by Ramsay and Harkness, 

 and later by A. Geikie ; and in 1858 and 1860 

 it was declared by Murchison that the gneisses 

 and mica schists of the Highlands were newer 

 than the fossiliferous strata, and were, in fact, 

 rocks of Silurian age in an altered or meta- 

 morphic condition. As I pointed out in 1860, 

 the parallelism between these Scottish rocks 

 and those of New England and eastern Can- 

 ada is evident. The ancient gneiss of the 

 Adirondacks, the paleozoic strata of the 

 Champlain basin,) ncl the crystalline schists of 

 the New-England Highlands, then regarded by 

 most American geologists as of paleozoic age, 

 are a counterpart of the strata of north-western 

 Scotland, and I am aware that Murchison was 

 sustained by these resemblances in his view of 

 the age of the Scottish Highlands. It was. 

 however, then opposed by Nicol, who main- 

 tained that these rocks, though distinct from 

 those of the west coast, were, nevertheless, 

 more ancient than the fossiliferous Cambrian 

 found along their western base. I at that 

 time shared the common belief of the meta- 

 morphic school of American geologists, and, 

 extending it to the Scottish rocks, supported 

 the thesis of Murchison and his colleagues 

 against that of Nicol. When, however, I be- 

 came satisfied of the errors of this school, and 

 asserted the pre-Cambrian age of the various; 



