the material illustrating the state and local geology of the country, the local interest and effort may die out, and that ultimately the weight of public sentiment favorable to geologic investigation may suffer diminution. Such a result, besides retarding the general advance of geologic interests, would inevitably react on the national survey itself. It is hoped by the promoters of THE AMERICAN GEOLOGIST that its influence may serve to perpetuate the general interest in geological investigation, and that with this view, the numerous workers on the national survey may lend the enterprise their countenance and support. The editors of this journal pledge to them and to all geologists of whatever school or party, that THE AMERICAN GEOLOGIST shall be conducted on a plane of judicial impartiality, above the influence of factions and of personal or local controversy. The existence of an avenue through which the local interests of geology throughout the country may find expression, and through which the contributions to science that emanate from the laboratories and libraries of numerous students, may be laid before their fellow workers, will serve as a stimulus to local investigation, promote the interests of general intelligence and strengthen that basis of popular appreciation on which every public scientific enterprise--state or national - ultimately rests.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN AND ACTS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF GEOLOGISTS, AND OF THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE DELEGATES TO IT.

BY PERSIFOR FRAZER.

ORIGIN OF THE COMMITTEE.

At the Buffalo meeting of the A. A. A. S. (of 1876) the Standing Committee of the association offered to the genera. session the following:

RESOLVED, that a committee of the association be appointed to consider the propriety of holding an international congress of geologists at Paris during the international exhibition of 1878, for the purpose of getting together comparative collections, maps, and sections and for the settling

of many obscure points relating to geological classification and nomenclature. etc., etc.

The other clauses relate to the appointment of Torrell and Baumhauer, and others, to assist the committee, which latter was composed of W. B. Rogers, James Hall, J. W. Dawson, J. S. Newberry, T. S. Hunt, C. H. Hitchcock and R. Pumpelly, [Executive proceedings, A. A. A. S. Buffalo meeting, 1876].

PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONGRESS.

At the Nashville meeting, in 1877, the Standing Committee recommended that Prof. J. P. Lesley and And. C. Ramsay be added to the international geological committee. Dr. Hunt presented a report of the committee in executive session, and on recommendation of the Standing Committee, in addition to the above two names, the presidents of the Geological Societies of France, London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Berlin, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and of the Imperial Geological Institute of Vienna, were added [Nashville volume, A. A. A. S., Exec. Proc.]

At the Saratoga meeting, August, 1879, Prof. James Hall, chairman of the American committee, made a report of the proceedings of the first International Geological Congress in Paris, held August 29, 1878, from which the following is extracted:

There were present at the Congress Profs. Lesley, Hunt, Hall, Cook, Blake, Cope, Chamberlin and Selwyn.

At the Congress at Bologna, to be held Aug. 29th 1881, there are two principal subjects comprised under two groups, and for each of these an international committee was named at Paris. 1st, Unification of geological cartography. 2nd, Unification of geological nomenclature, under which head will be considered all matters relating to classification as well as to the value and significance of mineralogical, lithological and paleontological characters, thus embracing many of the most important problems of geology. In naming these, as far as possible one member from each country was appointed, whose duty it is to organize therein separate local committee for each group, and to communicate to the secretary of the Council of the Paris Congress, and with the local committees at Bologna. For the committee on the map the American members were Lesley (U. S.), Selwyn (Can.). On geological nomenclature, Hall, (U. S.), and Hunt (Can.). In view of the fact that the work of the International Geological Congress was initiated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and that it promises to become one of permanent and increasing importance, it is believed that it will be for the best interests of geological science that the committee be continued etc.,

and further that its scope may, with advantage, be extended to include the consideration of such questions relating to state and national geological surveys as may from time to time arise.

On motion of major Powell the report was accepted and the recommendation adopted.

The foreign members were dropped from the American committee.

At a subsequent meeting of the committee, held at Saratoga, Sept. 1, 1879, the names of Geo. H. Cook, James D. Dana and Clarence King, were added to the committee; the other members being James Hall, W. B. Rogers, J. W. Dawson, J. S. Newberry, C. H. Hitchcock, R. Pumpelly, J. P. Lesley and T. Sterry Hunt.

At the Boston meeting in 1880, in the executive proceedings, the committee on the International Congress of Geologists was discharged. [See the report in the proceedings.]

In the proceedings of the American Association for 1880 and 1881 no mention of the committee is made, and it does not appear among the standing committees of the association in the reports of the Boston and Cincinnati meetings for those years.

At the Montreal meeting, in 1882, Dr. Hunt stated, in behalf of the International Geological Committee, of which Hall, Selwyn, Lesley and himself had been appointed representatives of North America by the Congress at Paris, that a report had been prepared some months ago, and asked that the committee be continued, which was done, Prof. Hall seconding the motion. No mention is made in the volume of the proceedings of the Bologna Congress.

'At the Minneapolis meeting, 1883, the committee on the International Congress of Geologists was continued. At this time, and the year before, when it was resuscitated, it consisted of Hall, Dawson, Newberry, Hunt, Hitchcock, Pumpelly, Lesley.

In 1884 Powell, Cook, Stevenson, Cope, and Smith were added by the General Session on recommendation of the Council, and the committee was continued.

In 1884, Frazer, H. S. Williams and N. H. Winchell were added. In this year there were present at the Berlin Congress, of the above as delegates, Hall, Newberry, Williams and Frazer. Prof. Brush, being in Berlin at the time, and a member of the

Congress already, was invited to act with the American committee during the session.

The secretary of the American committee took notes of the proceedings of the Congress and prepared an account which appeared in the American Journal of Science for December, 1885. This account was forwarded to all the principal participants in the debates, and with a few corrections furnished by these, and on the expressed opinion of M. Fontannes, the official secretary of the Congress, who had all the notes and edited the proceedings of the Congress, that it was "rigorously exact," a pamphlet was issued at the expense of the committee, 300 copies of the provisional color scale printed at Berlin having been imported and added to it.

Meetings of the American committee have been held twice in New York city, once in Philadelphia, once in Albany, once at Spring Lake, New Jersey, and again in New York city, at Columbia College, during the session of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Reference will be made to the proceedings of these meetings in another place.

SHORT HISTORY OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE VARIOUS CONGRESSES-THE PARIS CONGRESS.

The program of the Congress, as given in the front of the volume of its proceedings [Paris session, 1878], is seen to be:

1. Unification of geological works in respect of nomenclature and symbolic representation.

2. Discussion of various questions concerning the limitations and characteristics of certain terranes.

3. Representation and co-ordination of the facts of alignment (faults and veins).

4. Respective value of faunas and floras, from the point of view of the boundaries of terranes.

5. Value of mineralogical composition and texture of the rocks, from the point of view of their origin and their age.

On Thursday, August 29th 1878, at 3:15 P. M., in the palace of the Trocadero, in Paris, the first Congress was opened under the presidency of the Minister of public instruction. M. Hebert, the president of the committee of organization, made the opening address, and almost immediately stated the principles

which must govern a Congress of this kind, and which have faithfully been carried out in all subsequent meetings. If the gentlemen who noisily and quasi-officially apply the worldly definition of orthodoxy and heterodoxy to their plans and other people's plans of reforming the science, would but read what has been done, they would be spared the labor of killing a great many corpses, and of inventing a great many old proverbs. The first Congress was hardly five minutes old when M. Hebert remarked: "Pour atteindre notre but, nous aurons certainement a surmonter des grands obstacles, de nombreuses difficultés, et ces difficultés ne sont pas toutes de nature a être levées par un Congrès. On ne saurait ici invoquer la loi du nombre; nulle majorité ne saurait imposer des convictions que le sentiment du vrai peut seul amener. Cependant, de l'échange des idées, de la discussion des faits et des opinions, résultera necessairement, pour les amis de la verité, une salutaire influence; et des réformes spontanées pourront être la conséquence de nos réunions." etc.

This wise and just langauge has been the key-note of all future acts of the Congress; and until one can point to some act which has the appearance of abandoning the policy here indicated, the implication of the members of any particular session in the attempt to usurp authority is most unjust.

The position of the American committee toward the Congress is somewhat peculiar, and was alluded to in the remarks of M. Janettaz on the occasion just mentioned. After sketching the birth and progress of the idea of an international congress in accordance with the facts given above, he says (speaking of the savants of all nations who were assembled in Philadelphia) "Ils créèrent, en conséquence, un comité auquel nous avons donné en France la dénomination de Comité fondateur de Philadelphie, pour rapeller a la fois son initiative et l'exposition de la noble cité Americaine, qui en avait eté le point de départ."

The story of the creation of the Congress then, as told by its official publications, is this: A number of savants representing the larger number of civilized countries, who were in the United States in 1876 for the purpose of visiting the Centennial Exposition, named a committee to inaugurate the project. Of this committee professor James Hall was president and Dr. T. Sterry