3lS l-HE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. Vl. 



they had been found were of the age of the Hudson River forma- 

 tion. On the 16th of July he addressed a letter to Prof. Bronn 

 of Heidelberg, on the subject. In this letter he stated that he 

 had received the pamphlet from me, — that the trilobites were 

 primordial forms, and calls for " new researches and new studies, 

 that may lead to a final and certain solution of this important 

 question." (This letter was published in the Proceedings of 

 the Boston N. H. Soc, Dec. 1860 ; in the Am. Jour. Sci., March 

 1861, and in the Can. Nat. Geol., in April, 1861.) 



Thus Barrande did in 1860, exactly what I had done inl859» 

 He decided that the trilobites were primordial, and that there was 

 reason to doubt that the rocks were of the age of the Hudson 

 River formation. In quoting Barrande's opinion. Dr. Hunt first 

 alludes to my description of the trilobites from Point-Levis in 

 August, 1860, and then says : — 



" Just previous to this time, in the Report of the Regents of 

 the University of New-York for 1859, Professor Hall had des- 

 cribed and figured by the name of Olenus, two species of trilo- 

 bites from the Slates of Georgia, Vermont, which Emmons had 

 wrongly referred to the genus Paradoxides. They were at once 

 recognized by Barrande, who called attention to their primordial 

 character, and thus led to a knowledge of their true stratigraphu 

 cal horizon, and to the detection of the singular error in Hising" 

 er's book, already noticed, by which American geologists had 

 been misled." 



Now it appears to me that any one reading this paragraph 

 Would arrive at the conclusion, that B.irrande was the first to 

 perceive that the trilobites were primordial forms. On the con- 

 trary, I pointed this out to the officers of our Survey one year 

 previously, and my opinion led to the investigation above alluded 

 to. 



Barrande's opinion was given in 1860, and was founded on 

 materials that I sent him. Mine was given and acted upon in 

 1859, and yet Dr. Hunt makes no allusion to it in any part of 

 his Address, althoui^h it was well known to himj 



2. — The Point Levis Trilobites, 



In May arid June, 1860, a large number of trilobites and othei* 

 fossils, were discovered in the limestones of Point Levis. I 

 decided that these belonged to a horizda about the age of the 



