OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 179 



mons gives a description of the Taconic system in that State. He 

 points out the existence of fossil corals in the lower Taconic series 

 near Troy, in Montgomery County, and describes and figures them, 

 pao-es fi2 and 63, under the name of Paleotrochis major and P. minor. 

 Tliere are some doubts as to their organic character, and it is possible 

 that like Eozoon they belong to the mineral kingdom. 



1859-60. — In his "Manual of Geology," first published in 1859, 

 and a second edition in 1860, (New York, 8vo,) Prof. Emmons de- 

 scribes the Taconic system in Chapter XI. pp. 81 to 89. ''This 

 system is subdivided into a Lowei and Upper ; the first consists of a 

 conglomerate at the base, succeeded by silicious talcose beds of 

 considerable thickness, in which there are frequently pebbles ; next 

 above, are three thick beds of sandstone, separated by talcose slates ; 

 these are succeeded by the Stockbridge limestone. This is the marble 

 of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, which extends from the State of 

 Vermont to Georgia. The Stockbridge limestone is succeeded by a 

 mass of slate of great thickness, the upper part of which is suitable for 

 roofing. The greatest thickness of the Lower Taconic rocks is about 

 5,000 feet. .... Upper Taconic rock consist of numerous beds of 

 slate alternating with shales, thin-bedded sandstone, some of which are 

 coarse and brecciated, thin-bedded bluish limestone, more or less cherty 

 and checked with seams of white calcareous spar, and red, brown, and 



purple roofing-slates According to Barrande, the Paradoxides 



and Oleniis belong to his primordial zone, or are Sub-silurian in Bohe- 

 mia. In this respect our Paradoxides are also Sub-silurian ; and 

 hence it has been shown that the primordial zone in Bohemia is in 

 co-ordination with the upper series of the Taconic rocks." A most im- 

 portant remark, at a time (1859) when every geologist and palteon- 

 tologist in America except Colonel Jewett and Billings, were against 

 the existence of the Primordial zone in the Taconic system. 



Finally, Emmons, in a note at the end of the second edition, 1860, 

 of his Manual of Geology, page 280, says: "The slates or shales re- 

 ferred to (in the Regent's Report of New York for 1859), in Northern 

 Vermont, as constituting a new series above the so-called Hudson River 

 group, instead of ranking thus high in the geological scale, are really 

 sub-silurian, as is fully proved by the overlying calciferous (red sand- 

 rock) sandstone We now know the following Trilobites, all of 



which belong to a slate beneath the calciferous," (Emmons called the 

 red sand-rock of Vermont, which is since proved to be identical with 

 the Potsdam sandstone, Calciferous sandstone,) " viz. : Atops puncta- 

 tus, Eliptocephalus (^Paradoxides) asnphoides, Paradoxides Thompsoni, 



