Frazer on Int. Cong, of Geologists. 7 
which must govern a Congress of this kind, and which have 
faithfully been carried out in all subsequent meetings. If the 
gentlemen who noisily and quasi-officially apply the worldly 
definition of orthodoxy and heterodoxy to their plans and other 
people's i^lans of reforming the science, would but read what 
has been done, they would be spared the labor of killing a great 
many corpses, and of inventing a great many old proverbs. The 
first Congress was hardl}' five minutes old when M. Hebert 
remarked: "Pour atteindre notre but, nous aurons certainement 
a surmonter des grands obstacles, de nombreuses difficult^s, et 
ces diflicult^s ne sont pas toutes de nature a etrc levies par 
un Congres. On ne saurait ici invoquer la loi du nombre; 
nulle majority ne saurait imposer des convictions que le senti- 
ment du vrai pent seul amener. Cependant, de I'^change des 
id^es, de la discussion des faits et des opinions, resultera ncces- 
sairement, pour les amis de la verity, unc salutaire influence; et 
des rdformes spontanees pourront etre la cons(5quence de nos 
reunions." etc. 
This wise and just langauge has been the key-note of all fu- 
ture acts of the Congress; and until one can j^oint to some act 
which has the appearance of abandoning the policy here indi- 
cated, the implication of the members of any particular session 
in the attempt to usurp authority is most unjust. 
The position of the American committee toward the Con- 
gress is somewhat peculiar, and was alluded to in the remarks 
of M. Janettaz on the occasion just mentioned. After sketching 
the birth and progress of the idea of an international congress in 
accordance with the facts given above, he says (speaking of the 
savants of all nations who were assembled in Philadelphia) 
"lis crderent, en consequence, un comite auquel nous avons donnd 
en France la d(?nomination de Comite foiidateur dc Philadelphie, 
pour rapeller a la fois son initiative et I'exposition dc la noble 
cite Americaine, qui en avait ete le point de depart." 
The story of the creation of the Congress then, as told by its 
official publications, is this: A number of savants representing 
the larger number of civilized countries, who were in the United 
States in 1876 for the purpose of visiting the Centennial Exposi- 
tion, named a committee to inaugurate the project. Of this 
committee professor James Hall was president and Dr. T. Stcrry 
