CONTINENTAL PERSPECTIVE OF AMERICAN PRE- 
CAMBRIAN STRATIGRAPHY. 
CHARLES KEYES. 
To many of the delegates to the Twelfth International Geologi- 
cal Congress who listened to the papers and discussions on Pre- 
Cambrian problems and who afterwards took part in the 
Canadian transcontinental excursions into regions where the 
ancient elastics were displayed in infinite variety, the most valu- 
able feature perhaps, was the field evidences of the amazing 
taxonomic possibilities which on the American continent the 
Pre-Cambrian sections were opening up. Few of the travelers 
had ever seen so deeply into the oldest stratified rocks in so short 
a time, under such favorable circumstances, or under happier 
guidance. Some of the participants in the proceedings, pre- 
eminent in other fields of stratigraphic endeavor, seemed to see 
in this old American complex exactly the counterpart of condi- 
tions that were presented a century ago by the Primary 
(Paleozoic) rocks when they were awaiting the magic touch of 
English geologists to unfold the then inextricable maze. 
Between the two century-part problems there is one marked 
difference. In America there appears to be in place of only one 
grand succession of formations two vast piles of eral rank, either 
one of which very greatly surpasses in magnitude and time 
equivalent the entire Paleozoic sequence with which Murchison, 
Sedgwick and Lonsdale had to deal. As Doctor Walcott astutely 
remarked in the course of his informal lecture before the mem- 
bers of the Congress when he met them on the evening which 
they spent at Field Station nearby which was his now famous 
“Burgess Camp,” the Pre-Cambrian sediments of the Rockies 
present the most fruitful theme that today awaits the young 
and ambitious geologist. 
In the weighing of the evidence supporting the various 
hypotheses presented to them the visitors on these excursions 
held superior advantages over the others in that they were singu- 
larly free from a certain amount of bias which necessarily 
possesses those who work long and arduously in a circumscribed 
field. They were in an exceptionally commanding position 
