6 Frazer on Int. Cong, of Geologists. 
Congress already, was invited to act Avith the American com- 
mittee during the session. 
The secretary of the American committee took notes of the 
proceedings of the Congress and prepared an account which ap- 
peared in the American Journal of Science for Decemher, 1S85. 
This account was forwarded to all the j^rincipal participants in 
the debates, and w ith a few corrections furnished by these, and 
on the expressed opinion of AI. Fontannes, the ofiicial secretary 
of the Congress, who had all the notes and edited the proceed- 
ings of the Congress, that it was "rigorously exact," a pamphlet 
was issued at the expense of the committee, 300 copies of the 
provisional color scale printed at Berlin having been imported 
and added to it. 
Meetings of the American committee have been held twice in 
New York city, once in Philadelphia, once in Albany, once at 
Spring Lake, New Jersey, and again in New York city, at 
Columbia College, during the session of the American Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science. Reference will be made 
to the proceedings of these meetings in another place. 
Short History of the Proceedings of the various 
Congresses — the Paris Congress. 
The program of the Congress, as given in the front of the 
volume of its proceedings [Paris session, 1S78], is seen to be: 
1. Unification of geological works in respect of nomenclature 
and symbolic representation. 
2. Discussion of various questions concerning the limitations 
and characteristics of certain terranes. 
3. Representation and co-ordination of the facts of alignment 
(faults and veins). 
4. Respective value of faunas and floras, from the point of 
view of the boundaries of terranes. 
5. Value of mineralogical composition and texture of the 
rocks, from the point of view of their origin and their age. 
On Thursday, August 39th 1S7S, at 3:15 p. m., in the palace 
of the Trocadero, in Paris, the first Congress was opened under 
the presidency of the Minister of public instruction. M. Hu- 
bert, the president of the committee of organization, made the 
opening address, and almost immediateh" stated the principles 
