Personal and ScieiUiJic Nen^s. 41U 
father offered this to the Congress in the same spirit that he would have 
offered a caudle to the Virgin. The difficulty of the situation lies in 
the fact that the Congress is not a corporate body and there is good rea- 
son why it should never become so. The moment it acquires property, 
agrees to fulfill periodical duties, etc., it loses its Character of a convo- 
cation of the leaders of the science at a given epoch, and becomes a 
mere society. As a society its chances of being hunted, captured and 
chained by those interested in harnessing it to their schemes is many- 
fold greater than when it is only a name without a local habitation or 
material existence except in a council named from all countries. With 
such a precedent it will become very difficult to refuse the gifts by which 
superserviceable persons with more money than importance may desire 
to connect themselves with a large international idea. It is to be hoped 
that with that innate diplomacy which the Russian has as a birthright 
and v/hich the Frenchman has exercised perhaps longer than any other 
race, means will be found to transfer this trust to the Russian Acade- 
my of Sciences or some other Russian institution and that the Congress 
may be freed from its dangerous bantling. If there were not reasons 
enough without it this one would seem sufficient to prevent the con- 
summation of this ill-advised jjlan. The existence of the Congress is a 
matter of conjecture from one to another of its triennial sessions. If the 
Congress should cease to exist what would become of the bequest. Even 
if it be admitted that the Congress might advise with the trustee as to 
the use to be made of the interest on the gift, some actual institution 
should be the guardian of the latter, and not the incorporeal essence of 
pure geological science which the Congress ought to be. 
One word more in regard to the sessions. When Siemens took the 
pretty electrical toy of a moving little train of light tin cars as a model 
and made a real train which ran economicall}' by electricity he accom- 
plished a great deal for humanity. But when Capellini takes the old 
trick of the Sunday school and campmeeting of clapping hands the mo- 
ment a ijroposition is made which he wants adopted he uses a child's toy 
to stifle free speech and render mature deliberation imfjossible. This 
practice is growing so objectionable that if not ch(!cked, deliberation or 
fair discussion will become impossible, and the proceedings a farce. 
Peksifor Fkazer. 
PERSONAL AND SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 
Dr. S. W. Bp:yer, of the Iowa Agricultural (■oliege and the 
.Iowa Geological Survey, after iinving attended the sessions of 
the International Congress of Geologi.sts, is spending the win- 
ter in study at Munich. 
Dr. Rohkrt Bell, of the (Canadian (ieologieai Survej', who 
recently returned from an extensive ex|)lf»ration of the shores 
■of Baffinland, reports a very successful trip i^Ofhnm Citizen^ 
