384 PROCEEDINGS OF OTTAWA MEETING. 



of subaerial decay < >f the older crenitic rocka subjected to diagenesis, and 

 in the presence of certain "apparently feldspathic matters forming im- 

 perfed gneisses" evidence of the still, though feebly acting, crenitic 

 process. Traces of the still later and more feeble remnant of the crenitic 

 process arc found by J >r Hunt in the presence of rutile, tourmaline and 

 staurolite and in the paleozoic argillites. 



Having stated this order of development as an inflexible law, he as- 

 signed all the rocks generally called plutonic and metamorphic, respect- 

 ively to these periods, thus forming an interdependent chronologic and 

 Lithologic canon. In this light it is easy to understand his reasons lor 

 denying the formation of crystalline schists during later periods than 

 the pre-Cambrian, and also lor rejecting a recognition of those process - 

 which, like pseudo morphism, metasomatosis, etc, have been used in ex- 

 plaining local and regional metamorphism. 



The so-called Taconic rocks had been by many of the most eminent 

 geologists placed in the Paleozoic, a view which he held in common with 

 Logan as late as 1868, and which was reiterated later by Dana after an 

 extended and careful field study. Many of these rocks are highly crys- 

 talline and include gneisses. This touched a critical point in Dr Hunt's 

 system at a later period of it- growth, ami he was naturally drawn into 

 the Taconic controversy. The structural and other problems underlying 

 this long and bitterly contested question were extremely complicated 

 and such that the correctness of any interpretation could he ascertained 

 only by exceedingly detailed surveys, made with such topographic maps 

 as did not then exist. It should not he counted against Dr Hunt that 

 from the limited reconnaissance field-work which he was able to do, he 

 came out a partisan for any particular side. But, considering the vari- 

 ous possible interpretations of the facts, his interpretation was naturally 

 one in agreement with the requirements of his law of development oi 

 crystalline rocks. Thus in this controversy he held the view that the 

 series called Lower Taconic by Emmons is of pre-Cambrian age. This 

 series he named Taconian. In so far as western New England is con- 

 cerned, it consists of the Stockbridge lime-tone with its underlying quartz- 

 ite and overlying hydromica-schists, and has been recently shown by the 

 stratigraphical studies of Dana, Wolff, Putnam. Dale, Hobbs and the 

 writer, aided by the paleontological work of Wing, Walcott, Foerste, 

 Wolff and Dale, to range probably in unbroken succession from the 

 Olenellus Cambrian to the Hudson Liver group. At the top of this 

 series he drew a great time-break, and placed above it Emmons 3 Upper 

 Taconic, and assigned it to the Lower and .Middle Cambrian. 



A review of his recorded work shows that he was a brilliant and origi- 

 nal thinker, and that his speculations in chemical geology were based on 



