214 Barrande on the Primordial Fauna and Taconic System. 
Georgia were found appears to me, a , to have been 
but doubtfully determined, and incomplete opposition to palzontolog- 
ical documents. < 
“T do not think, then, that I weaken in the least degree the respect and 
confidence justly inspired by the labors of the American savants whose 
names have just been mentioned, when I ask them in the name of science 
to make new researches and new studies, that may lead to a final and cer- 
tain solution of this important question. 
“ Doubtless, thanks to the progress of our knowledge, we are now no 
ta bound by the ancient conception of the simultaneous extinction and 
from sustaining the reappearance of a fauna after the extinction of the 
following fauna, which the three trilobites of Georgia would do, if they 
: had really lived after the deposit of the Hudson River group. 
“ This reappearance would be still more astonishing, as among the three 
great Silurian faunz the second fauna occupies the greatest vertical space 
and is probably the one which enjoyed the longest existence. Thus, to 
verify such a reappearance, the most incontestable proofs are required, for 
such a decision would compel the entire re-formation of one of our mos 
important scientific creeds. “Yours very truly, 
J. BARRANDE. 
In another letter, dated Paris, 14th August, 1860, Mr. Bar- 
rande says :— 
“You will easily perceive the interest and importance of the question, 
even if it were only raised on account of the three Oleni of Georgia; but 
it takes in now a much wider field, owing to a letter I have just received 
from Mr. Billings, official Paleontologist of the Geological Survey of Ca®- 
ada, who informs me that he has found lately, in the schists and limestones 
near Quebec, considered as being the prolongation of those in question 12 
Vermont, nearly one hundred species, almost all new. ‘Twenty-six 
come from a white limestone, and seem to him to be the true represent 
tives of the Primordial fauna, and he cites among them Conocephalites, 
” 
rey 
Rae Sa aes FE 2a, Sule 
Seo eons eee 
