An Unjust Attach — Frazer. 
67 
amendments. At the New Haven meeting all the reports were ready for 
the press with the exception of the Lower Paleozoic and the Interior 
Oenozoic, and the reason that the former was held open was stated by the 
Reporter to be his desire to have the most recent work of Mr. C. D. Walcott 
properly represented there, Mr. Walcott having withdrawn his former 
contribution to this report after it was in type thus deranging the entire 
text to which his essay was the largest contribution. Every effort was 
made by the committee as a body, by the reporter on the Lower Paleozoic, 
Prof. N. H. Winchell, and by the secretary, to induce Mr. Walcott to com¬ 
municate his views (then being published in the American Journal of 
Science) but without avail. Finally late in May, 1888, the Secretary cut 
out such portions of Mr. Walcott’s then completed communication as he 
thought epitomized Mr. Walcott’s views, and sent them to their author for 
approval as a fair digest of his work; and received them back with two 
additions as “suggestions. ’ When Prof. Winchell’s report embodying 
these excerpts was received the secretary wrote to Prof. Hall for guidance' 
as to appending Prof. Winchell’s comments on Mr. Walcott’s paper to the 
report, and his decision was that Prof. Winchell’s comments ought 
to appear. The printers who had held the type for nearly a year were 
anxious to release it, and the reports had then bee i finally revised with 
the exception of B. The latter, with some few modifications by the editor, 
was therefore printed as it came from the hands of its reporter. 
The justice of the charge of suppression can be judged from the above. 
Prof. Winchell in a private letter in answer to one from the writer urging 
him to hasten the completion of his report, says: “Mine in particular being 
on a vital and long discussed question of nomenclature should not be forced. 
It ought to have the merit at least of having been open till the last moment 
for the reception of opinions and facts,” etc. Prof. Dana further says: 
“The Preface of the published report states that ‘all geologists were in¬ 
vited to meet the American committee in Albany during its session there 
(April 6th, 1887,) in order to aid it in arriving at a correct view of Ameri¬ 
can opinion.’ Such a call was published in vol. xxxiii of this Journal 
(1887) but the notice of the next meeting at Philadelphia communicated 
to the same volume by the Secretary, shows that it failed of the object 
announced.” 
The meeting in Philadelphia was held before the issue of the first No. 
of vol. xxxiii, or on December 28th, 1886. The notice to all geologists 
was printed in the last or June No. of vol. xxxiii, six months later. Prof, 
J. D. Dana has inserted the order of the years and their events. It was in 
fact the desire for this touch with American geological thought feit at the 
Philadelphia meeting which induced the committee to invite all geologists 
to the next following Albany meeting. 
Prof. Dana says further, “At the only meeting attended by the writer, 
that of January last, at New Haven—not then resuming active member¬ 
ship, as the published report states in its preface, but taking my first ex¬ 
perience in membership after receiving my first notice that I was a 
member,” etc. This casts a doubt on the accuracy of the statement in the 
preface which is easily removed. The same preface in giving a history 
