‘a 
Eighth International Geological Congress.—Ilrazer, 115 
LII. Recent geological discoveries in the valley of the Nile and 
of the Libyen desert. H. J. L. Beadnell. 26 pp. 
LIII. Geology of the eastern desert of Egypt. T. Barron and 
W. F. Hume. 33 pp. 
LIV. Rift valleys of the East of Sinai. W. F. Hume. 9 pp. 
LV. Geology of Eastern Sinai. W. F. Hume. 19 pp. 
6. This chapter comprises an appendix to the very full 
program of the excursions, adding many details there omitted 
~ but nothing of value to repeat in a short review. The jour- 
nals and newspapers of every country have been filled with 
the actual experience of the participants, and it would be 
supererogatory to introduce this subject here. 
7. The gem of the whole double volume lies in its last 
subdivision—the Petrographical Lexicon prepared by Low- 
inson-Lessing with the assistance of various petrographers 
under the auspices of the International Committee of the 
VIIIth Congress. 
Of course it is as impossible to review a lexicon as to 
further concentrate pemican or Liebig’s extract, but a word 
may be permitted concerning this new and excellent departure 
of an international scientific congress. If geology were a 
science like medicine, hoary with age and gouty with tradition, 
its representatives in international concourse assembled would 
not dare to do anything but would content themselves with 
resolutions and discussions. It was one of the objections of 
a former director of the U. S. Geological Survey to this con- 
gress that it could not do anything. It was inadmissible to 
agree upon a nomenclature because that implied foreknowl- 
edge of everything not yet discovered which was to be classi- 
fied under it. It was improper to delimit the groups, series, 
stages, etc., because this restrained the liberty of the many 
field workers each with a corps of assistants who might dis- 
cover something inconsistent with the classifications agreed 
upon. Had this notion prevailed the congress would have 
become a great ornamental conclave of the representatives of 
“regular” geological organizations throughout the world 
whoee duties were partly friendly communion and mutual pre- 
sentation of bouquets. Well, the congress has done several 
definite things and the most valuable of them all is the estab- 
lishment of a rallying point in the rapidly growing science of 
petrography, which threatened to become a crystalline Babel. 
