46 GENERAL VIEW OF THE TACONIC SYSTEM. 



I feel prepared 1o lay before the Anit'iican geologists the results of my observations. In 

 doing this, my design is to present tlienr not only with the additional evidence I have 

 recently acquired of the triilli of my former position respecting tins system, but also, as 

 far as circumstances will permit, with the whole evidence in regard to it. I do this for 

 (he [Hupose of correcting some errors, and elucidating the subject more fully, as well as 

 making it of greater value to American geology. In the following pages, I believe the 

 reader will be satisfied that in these rocks we have, for this country at least, the true 

 pa'.iBOZoic base, and that in them exists those organic forms which are strictly entitled to the 

 designation protozoic. 



^ 2. Opinions of geologists on the taconic and cambrian systems. 



The pul)lishe(l opinions of geologists in regard to the Taconic rocks, it is deemed will 

 be of sufficient interest to merit a transcription in these pages. I give them in the order 

 cf their publication. The first, then, is from the Report of Prof. Mather, one of my 

 colleagues m the New- York Survey, who, in his preface, has penned the following para- 

 graphs : 



" The views of one* of my colleagues are different on some of the problems of geology, 

 as I have just learned by seeing his published works. Time will determine who is right ; 

 and the author, if wrong, will without hesitation yield the point. Prof. Emmons has 

 discussed the long vexed question of the age of the Taconic rocks (the peculiar slates, 

 limestones, etc. along the eastern line of New-York from Lake Champlain to the High- 

 lands) . He has the advantage of having lived on and among thein, and of exploring 

 them with niuib minuteness during many years; and probably every geologist, from 

 examining them wliere he has, would arrive at the same conclusion as to their age. He 

 admits that they are not found at any locality resting on the primary, but that the Potsdam 

 sandstone is the lowest known rock resting upon that formation. 



" Prof. Hitchcock, the Geologist of Massachusetts, has also entered into a discussion of 

 the age of the Taconic rocks, as they occupy some space in the western part of Massa- 

 chusetts. His ol)servations, and those of Prof. Dana, have long since drawn the attention 

 of geologists to these rocks. Prof. H. views these rocks as metamorphic, a conclusion 

 entirely opposite to that of Prof. Emmons; but he could find no data from which to infer 

 tlieir age or place in the geological series. Both these gentlemen. Profs. H. D. and W. B. 

 Rogers, and various other geologists, have come to the conclusion that these rocks, and 

 in fact most of those from the Iloosic mountain range to the Hudson, have been wrinkled 

 up and folded over, all in one direction, so as to give the same direction of dip; and I 

 concur with them in this opinion. My own observations on these rocks, and those of 

 the Hudson valley, conducted with much care through tlieir whole extent in New- York, 



•By pei-.-^onal inquiry, Mr. Mather informed the author that ho was the colleague referred to. 



