VEKMONT AND WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS. 457 



Wing (Am. Jour. Sci., 1877, (3) XIV., pp. 202, 203 ; 1879, XVII., 

 p. 387) : — 



" From the focts brought forward it is manifest that the limestone schists 

 am! qnartzyte, making up the limestone series of Vermont and Berkshire, are 



continuous formations, and that they are conforrruihle throughout The 



limestone series is made up tohollij of Lower Silurian formations ; that is, of 

 formations not older than the primordial or Cambrian, nor newer than the 



Cincinnati or Hudson River group The Taconic mountains of western 



Berkshire are a direct continuation of the ' gre<it central slate-belt ' of Ver- 

 mont. The two make one range and one rock-formation, and consist of the 



same kinds of rocks similarly upturned In Vermont the Taconic slates 



(those of the central slate-belt) overlie the adjoining limestone in one or more 

 synclinals, as plainly shown in Mount Dorset, Danby Mountain, Equinox 

 Mountain, Spruce Peak in Arlington, and Mount Anthony in Bennington ; 

 and in Berkshire they have the same position, as observed in Greylock and 

 Mount Washington. Hence in both States the Taconic slates overlie, or are 



younger than, the adjoining limestone The Taconic schists are, according 



to the evidence, of the age of the Hudson River group." 



The limestones and micaceous quartzites of Berkshire County, Mass., 

 and elsewhere in New England, were stated by Dr. Hunt, in 1875, to 

 belong to the White Mountain or Montalban series. (Proc. Bost. Soc. 

 Nat. Hist., 1875, XVII., p. 509.) 



In 1878 Dr. Hunt remarked (Preface, Chemical Essays, 2d ed., 

 pp. xix.-xxii.) that the result of his study of the Taconic rocks had 

 led him 



" to conclude that what has been said of them in Essay XIII. Part 1, and in 

 Essay XV. Part 3, is only true of that portion which Emmons at first in- 

 cluded in the upper part of his Taconic .system under the general name of the 

 Taconic slates, but in 1855 separated from the underlying portions, and de- 

 scribed as the Upper Taconic series. This is no other than the Quebec group 

 of Logan, which is the northward prolongation of the Taconic slates from 



eastern New Vork The strata of this region, and of its extension 



north and south, including the western border of the whole Atlantic belt, 

 from the gulf of St. La%vrence to Alabama, have, as is well known, a general 

 high dip to the eastward, attended with many dislocations, folds, and inver- 

 sions ; as a result of which the newer sediments appear to pass beneath the 

 older ones, and even beneath the still more ancient crystalline rocks of the 

 belt, gi-ving rise to some of the most perplexing problems in American geolog\'. 

 The fauna of the Upper Taconic rocks, including the forms found at Troy, 

 New York, at Georgia, Vermont, and at Phillipsburg, Point Levis, and Bic, 

 in the province of Quebec, presents, as far as known, nothing lower than 

 the Menevian horizon, and belongs to the Lower and Middle Cambrian of 

 Sedgwick The lower Taconic series of Emmons, embracing in ascend- 



