LIFE OF JAMES DWIGHT DANA 



of Dr. T. Sterry-Hunt, reported in the Proceedings of that 

 date, would probably have brought me to my feet ; and 

 I presume that the Society would have favored me with a 

 hearing while I endeavored to show that, without a better 

 reason than that given, an interrogation mark should not 

 be so drawn across my several Green Mountain Memoirs 

 and those of other workers among the Taconic rocks. 



" As that ' doubt ' now stands recorded in the publica- 

 tions of the Geological Society without a dissenting re- 

 mark, I hope the Society will receive from me the short 

 statement I herewith send, and give it a place in its 

 Journal. 



1 The statement is not controversial in any respect, 

 but only a simple review of the conclusions published by 

 the various investigators of the Taconic region ; and its 

 purpose is to show how far there has been unanimity on 

 the point referred to in that doubt. I shall esteem it a 



freat favor if you will present my paper to the Society, 

 send also by post a bound copy of my Memoirs on the 

 subject, which I beg you will present to the Geological 

 Society for its library. 



4 The Green Mountain region, including the Taconic 

 range as one of its subordinate parts, is remarkable for 

 the extent of its ranges of crystalline limestone. They 

 are quarried for white and clouded marbles at various 

 points from Central Vermont to New York City a dis- 

 tance of two hundred and fifty miles. In the region the 

 metamorphism of the original stratified rocks (produced 

 probably during the period of upturning in which the 

 Green Mountains were made) diminished in intensity to 

 the northward and to the westward ; or, conversely, in- 

 creased to the southward and to the eastward, along the 

 region. Consequently, to find rocks that are imperfectly 

 metamorphosed and still containing fossils, we have to go 

 either northward to Central Vermont and beyond, or 

 westward over Eastern New York toward the Hudson 

 River. ^ The limestone along the range manifests beauti- 

 fully this variation in degree of metamorphism ; for, to 

 the north, it is very fine grained and at some points ex- 

 cellent statuary marble; while to the south, in West- 

 chester County, it presents its extreme of coarseness, the 

 crystalline grains in much of it a fourth of an inch across; 

 and to the westward, evidences of metamorphism in some 



