Abstract
LONDON. Geological Society, February 19.—Annual General Meeting.—Dr. A. Smith Woodward, president, in the chair.—Dr, A. Smith Woodward: Presidential Address. The progress of geology depends on so many lines of research, that each specialist does well at times to pause and consider the relation of his own small part to the whole. The president therefore reviewed some results of his study of fossil fishes in their bearing on stratigraphy. However necessary detailed lists of species of fossils might be for comparative work with sediments in restricted areas, he hoped to show that in dealing with broader questions names were really of small importance. Certain general principles had been arrived at, which would serve for all practical purposes. Each successive great group of fishes began with free-swimming fusiform animals, of which some passed quickly into slow-moving or grovelling types, while others changed more gradually into elongated or eel-shaped types. There was also a constant tendency for the primitive symmetry of the parts of the skeleton in successive members of a group to become marred by various more or less irregular fusions, subdivisions, and suppressions. Some of the successive species of each group increased in size, until the maximum was reached just before the time for extinction. These and many other more special inevitable changes had now been traced in most groups, and the various geological dates at which they occurred had been determined by observations on fossil fishes from many parts of the world. Even fragments of fish-skeletons', too imperfect to be named, were often therefore of value for stratigraphical purposes.
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Societies and Academies . Nature 95, 54–55 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/095054a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/095054a0