Mar., 18 ( J0. congkes - geologique international. 
59 
Society, no Sociological Section with its genial and able 
President). “ All seems to have been a dull, dead level of 
monotonous existence, varied by occasional cock-figlits and 
other brutal sports.” The contrast with present conditions 
is almost ludicrous, yet the change has been brought about 
by natural and discoverable means. A philosophical history 
of Birmingham has yet to be written, a fitting work for some 
member or members of the Sociological Section. It must be 
undertaken in no vain-glorious temper, but in the true evolu¬ 
tional spirit, which does full justice to the past and the present 
and yet looks steadily onward to the future, never permitting 
its aspirations to crystallise into stolid self-satisfaction. A 
society like ours ought to find its ideal in that “ possible 
future social type” which, in Mr. Spencer’s words, “will use 
the products of industry neither for maintaining a militant 
organisation nor exclusively for material aggrandisement, but 
will devote them to the carrying on of higher activities”—a 
type which, instead of believing that “ life is for work,” will 
hold the inverse belief that “ work is for life.”* 
THE LONDON MEETINGS OF THE CONGEES 
GEOLOGIQUE INTEENATIONAL, 
September 17th to 29th, 1888. 
BY REV. G. DEANE, D.SC., B.A., F.G.S. 
(Concluded from page 38.) 
The remaining subject discussed at the Congress, and 
perhaps the most important of all, related to the nature and 
origin of the crystalline schists. This discussion had been 
prepared for by the publication of eight distinct essays by 
different authors collected into one volume. Translations of 
some of these papers have appeared in Nature for Sep¬ 
tember of this year, p. 506, 519, and ff. The whole of the 
Wednesday’s sitting and part of that of Friday were occupied 
with this subject. Professor Lory, of Grenoble, led off the 
discussion, and advocated the hydro-thermal origin. Then, 
after Mr. Macfarlane, of Ottawa, Canada, had avowed himself 
an ardent Plutonist, Professor Heim, of Zurich, spoke at 
length on the other side, maintaining in addition to general 
metamorphism, the metamorphism of contact, and mechanical 
* Principles of Sociology, Yol. I., p. 563. 
