Mar., 1890. congres geologique international. 
68 
host of flakes upon the core from his palaeolithic workshop 
into the original flint from which they were chipped, though, 
of course, there were gaps, as some were missing. 
Dr. Hicks was to the fore with Pre-Cambrian specimens, 
and Dr. G. J. Hinde with silicious rocks from carboniferous 
strata. Dr. Hatch exhibited some very fine granite concre¬ 
tions, and Professor Judd a most interesting series of deposits 
from the borings in the alluvium of the Nile delta. A series 
of specimens exhibited by Professor Bonnev from Charnwood, 
The Lizard, and other districts, gained much attention. 
There were also some remarkably good mineralogical 
specimens, including a magnificent mass of tin ore in the 
matrix, and acassiterite crystal weighing 201b. from Dacotah. 
IV. It now remains for me briefly to sum up the 
advantages of such a Congress and its future work. 
With the increased facilities of modern travel, the 
tendency of all associations is to extend the sphere of their 
operation. Four years ago the British Association for the 
Advancement of Science went to Montreal, and has even 
talked of a visit to the Antipodes. The Library Association 
of the United Kingdom decided to hold its next meeting in 
Paris ; but this intention has since been altered, and the 
meeting will be held in London. For Geology there are 
obvious reasons why such a gathering should occur from time 
to time ; and it is almost a wonder that the scheme was not 
started earlier than it was. From the growth of the Congress 
during the last ten years, it would seem not unlikely that at 
some distant date it may assemble in Southern, or even Central, 
Africa, to explore the Triassic and other deposits there. But 
this is not vet. 
%> 
We are favoured in Britain with representatives of most 
of the geological systems. But, though Britain may be, so 
to speak, the 6/j.(pa\6s, the living centre of geology, it is not by 
any means the whole of it; and other countries must supply 
the gaps existing here. Denudation and deposition must in 
all ages have been going on permanently and constantly 
somewhere or other on the earth’s surface ; the other geolo¬ 
gical agencies must have been in action permanently and 
constantlv, and their results would show themselves some- 
where or other at the earth’s surface ; and hence the lack of 
one district is made up by the fulness of another. So long 
then as each country confines itself to its own territory it will 
have only an imperfect and perhaps inaccurate geological 
record. But let the fulness of one land supply the deficiencies 
of another, and we may ultimately reach a full, accurate, and 
comprehensive knowledge of the whole geological series from 
