124 A. WINCHELL — A LAST WORD WITH THE HURONIAN. 



by a singular, but sagacious, contrariety, Irving applied the term Huronian 

 only to the upper. 



The Name ^^ Huronian'' must he restricted to the upper System. — Clearly, 

 the interests of geology and of truth demand an adjustment of these con- 

 flicting conditions in terminology. If Sir William Logan unwittingly ex- 

 tended the term Huronian over two systems now known to be distinct, that 

 usage cannot be continued. Either the name must be restricted to the upper 

 system or it must be restricted to the lower system or it must be relegated to 

 synonymy. We think it may may be appropriately attached to the upper 

 system. The early Canadian geologists sought a term which would cover, 

 first and chiefly, the great quartzites which were found to follow the Silurian 

 strata in downward succession. Underneath were seen so-called chloritic 

 schists and a slate conglomerate, In the region first studied these were seen 

 to rest on crystalline rocks and appeared to fill completely the gap between 

 the Silurian and the gneisses. These strata were all conformable and evi- 

 dently constituted a system. If it had not been previously named, the Cana- 

 dian geologists conferred a service on science in giving it a designation. 



Soon, however, older schists than these were described, but since their 

 structural discordance with these was not striking in the original region, as 

 known thirty years ago, and since their conglomeratic and slaty characters 

 were similar to those in some strata of the system first named, it was natural, 

 or at least it was venial, to include these latter with the former. If, now, we 

 have learned that they are geologically incongruous with the higher, it ap- 

 pears obviously necessary to drop them oflf, however prolonged the period in 

 which they have been associated together. 



This is the view which we have maintained for several years. We have 

 insisted that the so-called Huronian of Lake Superior is an older system 

 than the Huronian of Lake Huron. But we were not aware, it must be 

 confessed, until our recent studies, that the same older system was actually 

 present north of Lake Huron. 



If, then, we restrict the term Huronian to the up))er system it remains 

 attached to the best-known and characteristic portion of the old complex 

 Huronian. There will remain the older system, not distinctively named 

 until Dr. Lawson in 1886 bestowed upon it the name " Kewatin." In volume, 

 in petrographic and stratigraphic characters, it is a system. It should there- 

 fore receive a name of systemic form. Such name is Kewatian, homophonous 

 with Huronian, Silurian and the remaining systemic names. 



Whether the term Huronian must not yield to the priority of Taconic or 

 Cambrian we will not discuss. Whether Kewatian can take precedence 

 over Azoic, Taconic and Cambrian, remains to be decided. It is the mis- 

 fortune of all these names, except Kewatian, that they were originally in- 

 tended to cover a complex of strata which has been proved to constitute two 

 distinct svstems. 



