144 REPORT OF THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE. 
the fact of its being split up into a large number of countries, if 
uniformity could be attained by mutual agreement, there was a 
strong probability that the system which succeeded here would be 
accepted by the rest of the world.* The report of the Com- 
mittee was published in English in the Report of the American 
Committee,! as was the action of the Congress upon its various 
recommendations (pp. 18-21). 
Those which passed without question related to (1) the publi- 
cation of the map, and business connected therewith; (2) its distri- 
bution when completed ; (3) the scale of the map, i.e., 1 : 1,500,000; 
(4) the Committee which was charged with editing it ; (5) the 
relation of colors for the Carbonic, Devonic, and Siluric systems, 
with all of which this report is not concerned ; (6) the selection 
of seven tints of red to represent the eruptive rocks. This lat- 
ter is contained in Prof. Lossen's scheme for the classification 
of the eruptive rocks, and will be more particularly considered 
in another place. It is only of importance to record here that 
the Congress took no vote on the desirability of this scheme, but 
left its adoption for a specific object to the discretion of the com- 
mittee on the geological map. So far, then, as the Congress is 
concerned, there was no adoption of this or any other scheme of 
classification or coloration of eruptive rocks except J for the pur- 
pose of enabling the map-committee to represent the eruptives 
according to some scheme, which will be better criticized, when it 
is seen how it lends itself to representing the facts in the geology 
of Europe.§ 
* It is a mistake constantly being made by American geologists, to suppose 
that the making of a geological map of Europe was one of the fundamental 
objects of the Congress. It was merely an incident to its purpose of unifica- 
tion ; and Asia, America, or any other part of tlie world might equally well 
have been chosen as a test-area if the conditions governing the clioice of such 
an area had been as favorable as they were in Europe, which, liowever, was 
not the case. 
f " The work of the International Congress of Geologists and of its Com- 
mittees; Philadelphia, 1886." 
t Ibid., p. 32. 
§ The time of the appearance of this map will be the most appropriate for 
all kinds of criticism of the methods of delineation proposed by the Committee. 
If, as is hoped, it shall be printed in time for presentation to the Congress in 
London, that body will doubtless lead the way in a searching criticism which 
will probably last till its next triennial session, and will result in many changes 
and much good. 
