422 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. vi. 



addressed to Prof. Bronn of Heidelberg, July 16, 1860 [Amer. 

 Jour. Sci. II, xxxi, 212], called attention to the trilobites therein 

 figured, and declared that no paleontologist familiar with the 

 trilobites of Scandinavia would " have hesitated to class them 

 among the species of the primordial fauna, and to place the 

 schists enclosing them in one of the formations containing this 

 fauna. Such is my profound conviction, etc." The letter con- 

 taining this statement had already appeared in the American 

 Journal of Science for March, 1861, but Mr. Billings in his note 

 just referred to, on the fossils of Highgate, in the same Journal 

 for September of that year, makes no allusion to it. In March, 

 1862, however, he returns to the subject of the sandrock, in a 

 more lengthy communication [Ibid II, xxxiii. 100), and after 

 correcting some omissions in his former note, alludes in the fol- 

 lowing language to Mr. Barrande, and to the expressed opinion 

 of the latter, just quoted, with regard to the fossils in question 

 and the rocks containing them : " I must also state that Bar- 

 rande first determined the age of the slates in Georgia, Vermont, 

 holding F. Thonipsoni and P. Vermontanay He adds " at the 

 time I wrote the note on the Highgate fossils it was not known 

 that these slates were conformably interstratified with the red 

 sandrock. This discovery was made afterwards by the Bev. J. 

 B. Perry and Dr. G. M. Hall of Swanton." 



Mr. Billings now blames me [Canadian Naturalist, new series, 

 vi, 318] for having written in my address of last year, with 

 regard to the Georgia trilobites, first described as Olenus by 

 Prof. Hall, that Barrande " called attention to their primordial 

 character, and thus led to a knowledge of their true stratigraphi- 

 cal horizon." I had always believed that the letter of Barrande 

 and the explicit declaration of Mr. Billings, just quoted, con- 

 tained the whole truth of the matter. My attention has since 

 been called to a subsequent note by Mr. Billings in May, 1862, 

 [Ibid II, xxxiii, 421] in which, while asserting that Emmons 

 had already assigned to these rocks a greater age than the New 

 York system, he mentions that in sending to Barrande, in the 

 spring of 1860, the Ileport of Prof. Hall on the Georgia fossils, 

 he alluded to their primordial character, and suggested that they 

 might belong to what Mr. Barrande has called ' a colony' in the 

 rocks of the second fauna. This is also stated in a note by Sir 

 William Logan in the preface to the Geology of Canada [page 

 viii.] As the genus Olenus, to which Prof. Hall^had referred 



