348 BULT^KTIN 109, UNITED STATICS NATIONAL. MUSEUM. 



rian and Devonian Series of Gaspe, wbere the rocks are mucli disturbed, so 

 very difficult a problem that I considered it would be a saving of time to 

 wait until tliat voiunie should appear before venturing on the task; and your 

 late examination of our collection of Gasiie, fossils will have shovvu you how 

 liable I should have been to commit errors; some of the results you have ob- 

 tained indicating the propriety of a reexamination of parts to ascertain whether 

 small local troughs of upper rocks are not placed on lower ones, when mere 

 mineral evidence would lead to no suspicion of the fact. It will be readily 

 seen from this of what indispensable use your paleontology is in the examina- 

 tion of Canada, 



4. It would have been a misfortune to the geological world if the paleontol- 

 ogy of New York had stopped at 50 Lower Silurian species, but possibly Canada 

 in that case, with a larger number of unpublished species in her collection, 

 might the sooner have been tempted to figure and publish them. 



5. As long as the 50 species for each f(nmatiou were considered to be all or 

 nearly all that were to be found after diligent search, although the paucity of 

 species might have surprised naturalists, and have led to wrong conclusions 

 In respect to the life of the periods, when it became ultimately known that 

 this was only one-sixth of the whole, it could not fail to be considered that 

 in giving it as the result of a national work, the State had been lamentably 

 deficent. 



G. The more extended the comparison, the more valuable the result; and in 

 traveling out of the State of New York in following the geographical distribu- 

 tion of the formations which compose its subsoil, you have only the more clearly 

 shown what I have frequently heard Sir Charles Lyell remark, that the com- 

 plete geology of New York is the key to that of all North America. 



7. Until some other State in the Union or some other country in North 

 America shall have published a greater number than New York of the fossil 

 species which characterize the formations common to both, the nomenclature 

 of New York will remain perfectly secure. Through the volumes which have 

 been publislied on the paleontology of New York the nomenclature of her rocks 

 has become classical in Europe as belonging to North America. If New York 

 had given but one-sixth of the species now published, it seems to me not improb- 

 able that Canada would ultimately have a fair chance (considering the unity 

 of design with which the investigation of the geology is carried on) of giving 

 a nomenclature to the rocks of North America. In regard to those formations 

 of New Y'ork of which the fossils are not yet published, we shall, if the probable 

 recommendations of the present geological committee of our legislature assem- 

 bly are carried out, very possibly be trending on your heels. It would only be 

 the personal consideration due to one who had done so much as you have for 

 the paleontology of North America and fo materially abridged our labor by 

 your own that would restrain us from interfering. 



8. In 1S50 I carried to England upwards of 50 boxes of Canadian fossils, 

 each box requiring two men to lift it, with a view of making, with the aid 

 of the paleontologists of the geological survey of the United Kingdom, a com- 

 parison between American and European types. A partial examination of the 

 collection was made by Mr. Salter. In the course of it many English and con- 

 tinental Europeiui authorities in paleontology were referred to, but to ascer- 

 tain whether the fossils were new to America the only reference it was con- 

 sidered necessary to make was to your publications. This, of course, regarded 

 Lower Silurian species, your second volume not being then published, but you 

 can .iudge from th's the estimation In which the first volume is held in Eng- 

 land as an American authority. 



