Editorial Com ment. 
195 > 
granite.’ 1 * Jukes will tell him of the Leinster sections which 
show mica schist on a ridge of granite “which seems to have 
eaten its way upwards through whatever lay above it,” in which 
case, and others similar, “therecould be little doubt of the granite 
being a inetamorphic rock.f ” Dr. James Geikie will tell him 
respecting the gray granites of the southern uplands of Scot¬ 
land, that “ they have resulted from the alteration in situ of 
certain bedded deposites.”J It is hoped the volume of testi¬ 
mony offered by the “British school” will complete Dr. Law- 
son’s conversion to the sedimentary theory, so that when he 
reappears on the scene, he will feel justified in substituting 
“probability” for “possibility.” When he reaches that point, no 
difference, will separate us, except as to the meaning which 
should be attached to “metamorphism.” Dr. Lawson says, it is 
very important for geologists to arrest its action before the 
softened state of the original sediments is reached. This is a 
question which he will have to settle with the authorities, and 
not with me. Dr. T. S. Hunt says, that granite is only the 
result of an extreme stage of metamorphism; the process which 
at certain stages only gave rise to gneiss, when carried a step 
further, went to the length of fusing the rocks it affected. § 
Professor Prestwich of the “British school,” thinks that “gran¬ 
ite is only an extreme phase of metamorphism , and has been 
formed by the refusion of the older sedimentary strata.” “Gran¬ 
ite may be considered as the same rock, but in a stage of meta¬ 
morphism more advanced than gneiss and 
The question of the sedimentary origin of the granitic and 
gneissic masses must be argued on broad and various grounds, 
among which the existence of conglomeritic gneisses, brought 
to notice in the present number of the Geologist, is one of the 
more novel and convincing. On a different occasion the present 
writer may undertake a more complete discussion. A. W. 
Another Old Channel of the Niagara River. 
Dr. J. T. Scovell of Terre Haute, Indiana, writes us that he 
has established the existence of an old and gravel-filled channel 
* Memoirs, Geological Survey , vol. iii, 2d. ed. p. 243, 1881. 
t Jukes’ Student’’s Manual, 3d ed, 1872, pp. 146, 242, 366. 
X Geol. Mag., vol. viii, p. 629, 1866. 
% Survey of Canada for 1863, p. 267. 
|| Geology , Chemical , Physical and Stratigraphical , vol. i, pp. 433, 435. 
See also, p. 415. 
