"copy" of this kind might have been secured. Everything considered, this class of copy must have been interesting reading for the public. No one can question its educational value. To the members of the congress themselves it was a help in learning to know each other. In two exceptional cases these sketches may have been unnecessarily embarrassing to the persons concerned, owing to the well-known journalistic tendency to be sensational. The contents of the headlines must have appeared brutal to a Chinese geologist, whom they proclaimed as having arrived in Toronto "in bond."
The many excursions arranged under the auspices of the congress received ample attention, seven per cent, of the text reporting such events. Preference was given to details of general human interest, such as the mode of travel, the personnel of the excursions, and some untoward or amusing incidents. Some reporters appeared disposed to furnish entertainment to the reader at the expense of the excursionists, as when they related in mock-heroic style the vicissitudes of an "armada" of steam launches exposed to a rough sea on an excursion to Scarboro Heights. Though it appears that the press reports might very profitably have presented more of the scientific significance of the things seen on these excursions, any such purpose on the part of the reporter promptly gave way to the dominant instinct of his class to entertain rather than instruct. A visit to the Don Valley, altogether without exciting incidents of any kind, resulted in more serious, though quite brief, references in the papers to the significance of the phenomena noted on the trip.
Editorial writers are usually not interested in the world of science. Nevertheless, some editorial comments on the congress were made in the Toronto papers. These touched on the practical utility of scientific research, and on the relation of society to physical sciences in general. They expressed also a mild defence of these sciences, stating that they are in the popular mind unjustly associated with gross materialism.
The fertile resources of the reporters were shown in their interviewing at least two geologists on a subject of unfailing popular interest—the age of the earth. One of the interviewed gentlemen was quoted as making his estimate 200,000,000 years. Another geologist said it was an unprofitable subject to discuss, and that different people meant different things in speaking of "creation," or of the beginning of the earth. The truth of this latter statement became quite evident in the discussion at one of the sessions of the congress, but this perhaps escaped the attention of the reporters.
The total space given to the reporting of the congress was nearly 3,000 square inches. Of this space about sixty-seven per cent, was text, seventeen per cent, was given to the reproduction of photographs or to other illustrations, and sixteen per cent, was taken up by large head-
