Editorial Comment. 141 
project, and take requisite preparatory steps. Professor N. H. 
Winchell was chairman and professor C. H. Hitchcock, secre- 
tary of the committee, but no published records preserve the 
names of the other members. Circulars vrere issued by the 
committee, and 126 answers were received, all but two of which 
favored the organization of a separate society. The committee 
i"eported to Section E. at the Montreal meeting of the Associa- 
tion, in 1882. It was there voted expedient to establish a geo- 
logical magazine. A proposed constitution for a society was 
presented, discussed and laid on the table for future considera- 
tion. Some hesitation was manifest on the part of some of the 
older members who had not participated in the earlier proceed- 
ings. It was suggested on one hand, that Section E. of the 
Association offered all the advantages of a geological society; 
and on the other, it was alleged that the requirements of Cana- 
dian geologists were met by the recently organized Royal 
Society of Canada. It was also suggested that the organization 
of a separate society might conflict with the interests of the 
American Association. The whole subject, therefore, was laid 
over to a subsequent occasion. At the Minneapolis meeting of 
the Association, in 1883, the consideration of the magazine and 
the society was resumed; but little was accomplished beyond 
the appointment of a committee to confer with the Mineralogi- 
cal and Geological Section of the Philadelphia Academy of 
Natural Sciences. For various reasons, the subject was not 
discussed at the Philadelphia meeting of the Association in 1884, 
the Ann Arbor meeting in 1885, or the Buffalo meeting in 1886. 
Meantime, the necessity of a separate geological organization 
became more apparent; and some who were at first indifferent, 
began to express a desire that further steps be taken. At the 
New York meeting in 1887, no action was taken by Section E.; 
but the American Committee of the International Congress, 
which existed under the sanction of the American Association, 
adopted the following resolution: "That the American Com- 
mittee of the International Congress will approve of a call for 
the meeting of an A.merican Geological Congress, whose object 
shall be the discussion of important geological questions." 
In accordance with the judgment of American geologists 
present at the Montreal meeting, that it was "expedient to es- 
tablish a geological magazine," an association of seven geolo- 
