Editorial Comment. 
45 
they perform the work much more exactly and easily than it 
was ever done before. A glance at the watch gives the time 
more readily and correctly than a look up to the sun in the 
sky, even when he is visible, and it is not too much to say 
that the multitudinous engagements of the modern world 
could not be carried on without our artificial timepieces. 
Everything would be at once slowed down to the rate that 
would be consonant with incessant uncertainty regarding the 
time of day. Yet, in spite of the manifest and manifold 
advantages and conveniences of clocks and watches, it is 
obvious that they would soon become useless were it not for 
constant reference to the great standard, the sun. Within 
their limits they are trustworthy and indispensable, but the 
daily check by the sun’s meridian transit confers upon them 
all their value. Strike out this element, this standard, and in 
a very short time the wildest confusion would ensue. The 
previously faithful dial plates would indicate discrepant 
hours and no means, save the irregular oncoming of darkness 
and daylight, would remain by which to adjust them. 
So it is with paleontolog}^ and stratigraphy. The former, 
or secondary method of determing the age of strata, is the 
timepiece, ever ready for instant use and giving the horizon 
with great accuracy and with the minimum of labor. But 
the latter, the absolute determinant, always stands by us as 
the ultimate standard of reference for testing the accuracy of 
the timepiece. 
EDITORIAL COMMENT. 
Shell-bearing Modified Drift in Great Britain. 
The question of the vertical extent of Pleistocene marine 
submergence of the borders of Great Britain is considered by 
Mr. Dugald Bell in the Geological Magazine for last July, Au¬ 
gust, and September. He notes the abandonment by Prof. 
James Geikie of the former claims of the “great submergence,” 
amounting to about 1,400 feet, which were founded on the 
gravel and sand beds of Moel Tryfaen, Macclesfield, and other 
localities, holding fragments of marine shells both of littoral 
and deep-water species. These beds have been shown by Belt, 
Goodchild, Henry Carvill Lewis, Kendall, and others, to be 
