OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 237 



of the liiglilands between Lake Superior, the Upper Mississippi, and 

 Green I?ay, belong to it, but as yet palaiontological proofs are entirely 

 wanting. Mr. A. R. C. Selwyn considers the columnar trap or dia- 

 base which forms the summit of Thunder Cape, Pie Island, and 

 McKay's Mountain as contemporary with the hlack slatj' shales of 

 Kakabeka Falls, called " Animikie Group " ; and not belonging to 

 the " crowning overflow " of the melaphyr copper-bearing rocks. My 

 own observations, made in 1848, coincide with this view; and I 

 am led to think that the diabases of this region, northwest of the lake, 

 are identical with those of Etchemin and Chaudiere Rivers near Que- 

 bec, and of Bel Qilil, Montarville, and Rougemont near the Richelieu 

 River ; and that the black slates of Kakabeka Falls belong to the 

 " Swanton slates " of the Upper Taconic. 



In Australia, notwithstanding the discovery of compound GraptoUtes 

 in the province of Victoria, one group of fossils alone, and of so low 

 an order, will not suffice us to decide upon the positive existence of 

 the Taconic System, although it appears very probable. 



In Africa no Primordial fauna has as yet been found. 



In Asia, China only has furnished certain proof, at Liau-Tang, that 

 the Taconic System is well developed. 



In Europe, Barrande has had the honor of first establishing, and 

 then pointing out, the Primordial fauna and the Taconic System in 

 Bohemia, in Great Britain, in France, in the Iberian peninsula, in Sar- 

 dinia, in Bavaria, and in Scandinavia. 



The development of the strata of the Taconic System, and the 

 forms and number of fossils in the classic countries of the Primordial, 

 England, Bohemia, and Scandinavia, are inferior to the American 

 series on both these points. 



In Bohemia, according to Barrande, there was an irruption of por- 

 phyry, which prevented any marine life, and placed a complete barrier 

 between the primordial and the second fauna. We may say, further, 

 that these porphyries arrested the development of the primordial fauna, 

 which presents in Bohemia only the lower portion, or '■'• Paradoxides 

 zone," of the Primordi d properly so called, without any trace of the 

 Infra- or of the Supra-Primordial faunte. There we have only the 

 zone with Paradoxides represented in America by Braintree, near 

 Boston; St. Mary, near St. John's, Newfoundland; and the envi- 

 rons of St. John, New Brunswick. 



The result of this interruption of life in Bohemia between the 

 " Paradoxides zone " and the second fauna, is the incompleteness of 

 the pala^ontologic series, and an absolute limit to the passage of any 



