T. S. Hunt on the Geology of Eastern New England. 88 
ground of Venus and upon thesky, because it issomuch fainter 
near the border. 
If the photographic telescope were furnished with clock-work, 
it would be advisable to take several photographs of the Pleiades, 
both before and after the transit, to furnish an accurate standard 
of comparison free from the danger of systematic error. There 
is little doubt that if the telescopes and operators practice 
together, either before or after the transit, data may be obtained 
for a satisfactory solution of the problem in question. 
To attain the object of the present paper, it is not necessary 
to enter into details respecting choice of stations and plans of 
observation. I have endeavored to show that no valuable re- 
sult is to be expected from hastily-organized and hurriedly- 
equipped expeditions; that every step in planning the observa- 
tions requires careful consideration, and that in all the prepara- 
tory arrangeraents we should make haste very slowly. I make 
this presentation with the hope that the Academy will take such 
le. 
action in the matter as may seem proper and desirable. 
Art. XL—On the Geology of Eastern New England; by Dr. 
- ea Hunt, F.R.S. (From a letter to Prof. 5 
. DANA, 
WHEN, more than twenty years since, my attention was 
turned to the geology of New England, there was no evidence 
of the existence between the old gneisses of the Adirondacks 
and the coal measures, of any other stratified rocks than those 
before that time, maintained the presence, in western Vermont 
and Massachusetts, of a system of fossiliferous sediments, lying 
unconformably beneath the Potsdam, but the evidence up to 
this time adduced with to these so-called Taconic rocks, 
has failed to show that they include any strata more ancient 
than the hile most of them are certainly younger. 
