96 A. WINCHELL A LAST WORD WITH THE HURONIAN. 



shore of Lake Superior also Cambrian, and the parallelism was maintained 

 by him * 



5. The opinion attributed to Dr. Houghton is correct, since Houghton 

 always held the " mixed traps and sandstone " as older than the " red sand- 

 stone," whatever views he may have held temporarily as to the age of the 

 sandstoue.f 



Proposal of the Name "Huronian." 



First Use of the Name. — It has been shown that Alexander Murray first 

 employed the term Huronian, though apparently in a geographical sense, in 

 1853 and 1854 (ante, p. 91). 



In 1855 he employed the terms "Laurentian" and "Huronian" as coor- 

 dinate, and apparently, therefore, in a taxonomic sense. Such use of the 

 terms in 1856 is unquestionable. But Murray's reports were not published 

 till 1857. 



Hunt's Use of the Name. — It belonged to Dr. T. S. Hunt to publish, in 

 1855, the first formal proposal for the use of the term " Huronian." In "A 

 Sketch of the Geology of Canada," speaking of the rocks on the north shore 

 of Lake Huron, then recently studied by Mr. Murray, he says : 



"As these rocks underlie those of the Silurian system, and have not as yet afforded 

 any fossils, they may probably be referred to the Cambrian system (Lower Cambrian 

 of Sedgwick). -J^ * * This Huronian formation is known for a distance of about 

 150 leagues upon Lakes Huron and Superior." J 



It can hardly be said that Hunt here employed the term in anything more 

 than a geographic sense, since, taxonomically, he says the rocks are Lower 

 Cambrian. It is not known whether he was then aware of Murray's use of 

 the term in the same sense in his unpublished reports. 



Logan's Proposal of '^ Laurentian^' a7id " Huroiiian." — It remained for Sir 

 William Logan, in 1857, to make a proposal of unequivocal intent. In a 

 paper read before the American Association, in August,§ " On the Division 

 of the Azoic Rocks of Canada into Huronian and Laurentian," he speaks 

 of them confidently as "a series of very ancient sedimentary deposits in an 

 altered condition." He refers to his suggestion of 1845 to separate the 

 purely gneissoid portion from the portion consisting of iuterstratified gneisses 

 and limestones, but says the evidence does not permit him to decide cer- 

 tainly which of these divisions of the Laurentian is most ancient. He next 

 refers to what was published in the report of 1845 relative to the rocks of 

 Lake Temiscaming : 



* Rull.Soc. genlog. de France, 1849-'50, 2d ser., VII, pp. 207-209. Report Brit. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1851, 

 Transactions of Sections, pp. 59-62. Amer. Jour. Sci., 2d ser., vol. XIV, 1852, pp. 224-229. 



fSee a different interpretation of Houghton by Wadsworth in Bull. Mus. Compar. Zool., 1880 

 (Geol. series, I), p. 83. 



X Canada at the Universal Exposition of 1855, pp. 427, 428 [Esquisse geologique, 1855, pp. 28-33]. 



gProc. Amer. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1857, pp. 44-47. 



