VERMONT AND WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS. 



445 



lying unconforniably "beneath, it, is simply to perpetuate an unfortunate mis- 

 take which I believe Dr. Emmons, if now living, would, with the paleontologi- 

 cal evidence at present before the world, be the first to acknowledge." 



In 1870 Dr. Hunt stated regarding the Tacouic rocks in Western Ver- 

 mont and Massachusetts, that "the evidence up to this time adduced 

 with regard to these so-called Taconic rocks, has failed to show that 

 they include any strata more ancient than the Potsdam, while most of 

 them are certainly younger.'* Of the Green and White Mountains he 

 remarks in the same paper : 



'* In fact, the schists and gneisses of the White Mountains arc clearly dis- 

 tinct, lithologically, from the Laurentian, the Labradorian and the Huronian, 

 as well as from the crystalline rocks of the Green Mountains, and from the 

 fossiliferous Upper Silurian strata which lie at the southwestern base of the 

 Canadian prolongation of the latter. Having thus exhausted the list of known 

 sedimentary groups up to this horizon, it was evident that the crystalline strata 

 of the White Mountains must be either (1) of Devonian age, or (2) something 

 newer (which was highly improbable) ; or (3) must belong to a lower and 

 hitherto unknown series." (Am. Jour. Sci., 1870, (2) L., pp. 83, 84.) 



This language of Dr. Hunt, as well as other remarks in the same 

 paper, is inexplicable, unless he still, as in the past, regarded the Green 

 Mountain crystalline rocks as being Lower Silurian, and distinct from 

 the Huronian. 



The remarks of Dr. Hunt above quoted, beginning with the year 

 1863, possess an additional interest from the fact, to be shown later, 

 that he claims that during all these years he held an entirely different 

 opinion as regards the age of the Green Mountains, he, for official rea- 

 sons, having been advocating views which he himself did not hold. 

 It seems that later the official reasons became inoperative, for in the 

 mean while Sir William Logan resigned his position as director of the 

 Geological Survey of Canada, and Mr. A. R. C. Selwyn was appointed 

 in his place. 



It now appears from Dr. Hunt's various writings that some time be- 

 tween the date of the last quoted article, May 10, 1870, and October 19 

 of the same year, (he in the mean time having been appointed Professor 

 of Geology in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,) his views 

 underwent a somewhat sudden "metamorphism." This showed itself 

 in a marked manner,, in 1871, in an address from which we proceed to 

 quote, but it docs not appear at first to have affected his general views 

 of the Taconic system. The reasons for this change of opinion are no- 

 where given in any satisfactory manner. 



