360 



EMMONS, EBENEZER. 



Massachusetts, preparing the " Report on the 

 Quadrupeds " of the State. 



"When the geological survey of New York 

 was undertaken, Dr. Emmons was appointed 

 one of the " geologists-in-chief," and had also 

 assigned to him the department of agriculture ; 

 and his reports constitute some six or eight of 

 the most valuable volumes of the well-known 

 "Natural History of New York" series. It 

 was while engaged in this labor, and subse- 

 quently, the interesting incidents hereafter al- 

 luded to occurred. Prior to the commencement 

 of the New York geological survey, our knowl- 

 edge of American geology was exceedingly 

 confused and indefinite, and no clear ideas had 

 been arrived at, as to what were the oldest fos- 

 siliferous rocks of the continent, or as to their 

 location, extent, or the nature of the former 

 life evidences contained in them. The survey 

 of Massachusetts and Connecticut had indeed 

 been made, but in neither of these States were 

 the requisite data for making a general classifi- 

 cation of the older American rocks to be found. 

 In the broad territory of New York, however, 

 it was seen from the first, that the clue to the 

 enigma was obtainable, and soon after the com- 

 mencement of the survey, evidence was accu- 

 mulated, demonstrating that the divisions of 

 the older fossiliferous rocks worked out and 

 established in Great Britain, and on the conti- 

 nent of Europe, could be recognized also in 

 North America, and that the period of their 

 formation was, in part at least, contempora- 

 neous. In conformity with these views, there- 

 fore, the New York zoologists adopted the no- 

 menclature of the English classification, and 

 grouped the oldest series of stratified fossilifer- 

 ous rocks, found in their State, into one system, 

 called the " silurian ; " the oldest and lowest 

 member of which, the "Potsdam sandstone," 

 was considered as representing, with its few 

 fossils, the epoch when animal life first dawned 

 on the North American continent. The deter- 

 mination of these data was a matter of very 

 great? importance, inasmuch as the position of 

 the oldest and lowest fossiliferons strata is the 

 starting point for the classification of the enor- 

 mous series of other fossiliferous rocks that are 

 superimposed, and which were consequently 

 formed subsequently. It is also the starting 

 point for reckoning geological time compara- 

 tively ; and the point from which animal and 

 vegetable life, commencing in few and humble 

 forms, is traced upward, expanding, succeed- 

 ing, possibly developing and transmuting. 



From this opinion, namely, that the silurian 

 system of New York includes the oldest Amer- 

 ican fossiliferous rocks an opinion in which 

 all at first acquiesced Dr. Emmons came grad- 

 ually to differ, and after continuing his investi- 

 gations for some years, he at last unhesitatingly 

 announced that beneath the oldest member of 

 the Bilurian system, there was another series 

 of stratified rocks, of enormous thickness, rep- 

 resenting a life period on our continent of 

 much greater antiquity than any before recog- 



nized, and an epoch of time, in comparison 

 with which the silurian era seems modern. To 

 this system, from the circumstance that the 

 rocks included in it are extensively developed 

 in "Western Massachusetts and Vermont, Dr. 

 Emmons applied the name "Taconic." To it 

 also have been assigned the rocks which con- 

 stitute the western face of the Green Moun- 

 tains, extending from Canada to Georgia, the 

 well known Berkshire and Vermont limestones 

 and marbles, and extensive beds of slates and 

 sandstones in the Lake Huron and Lake Supe- 

 rior districts and in Virginia, North Carolina, 

 Tennessee, and Arkansas. The announcement 

 of Dr. Emmons's views was received by geolo- 

 gists and naturalists generally with scepticism, 

 partially, we suppose, through the natural un- 

 belief which almost always attends the promul- 

 gation of any startling new truth, and partially 

 because British and continental geologists the 

 recognized authorities of the time had not 

 then announced any analogous discovery ; and 

 this scepticism, either through jealousy of the 

 brilliancy of the discovery, in case it was sub- 

 stantiated, or ill will at having pet theories rude- 

 ly knocked over or disturbed, soon ended in per- 

 secution. To unscientific readers, persecution 

 may seem rather an exaggerated expression to 

 use as illustrative of the conduct of American 

 scientists toward a colleague, simply on account 

 of a difference of opinion, but no other term 

 will rightfully express their action. For years 

 Dr. Emmons was as good as banished from all 

 scientific society. In public and in private, in 

 print and in speech, he was impliedly or openly 

 alluded to as a mere pretender in science, as a 

 charlatan, and as dishonest. At the Albany 

 meeting of the American Association for the 

 Promotion of Science in 1856, the treatment he 

 received from fellow members was almost bru- 

 tal ; old acquaintances hardly recognized him, 

 and few gave him the right hand of fellowship. 

 A law suit, moreover, grew out of this scien- 

 tific war, to further which, to the detriment of 

 Dr. Emmons, a learned New England professor 

 left his academic duties and figured conspicu- 

 ously in a New York petit court. Yet, in spite 

 of all this, Dr. Emmons preserved the most 

 Christian manliness and dignity, and never re- 

 torted either in speech or print to the abuse 

 showered upon him except to firmly assert hi? 

 confidence that the world would ultimately dc 

 him justice. This state of things, as we have 

 already intimated, lasted for some ten or fifteer. 

 years; and it perhaps should be said that, dur- 

 ing all this time, no charge, reflecting on the 

 private character of Dr. Emmons, other than 

 as a scientific observer, was brought againsi; 

 him by the bitterest of his opponents. 



But justice, long delayed, came at last. In 

 conducting the geological survey of Canada, 

 instituted subsequent to the New York survey, 

 a Canadian geologist came to the conclusion 

 of Dr. Emmons, that the silnrian system did not 

 embrace the oldest and lowest of the Ameri- 

 can fossiliferous rocks ; but, ignoring the forme? 



