- 
i 
3 
4 
1887] Notes on Classification and Nomenclature. 695 
zone, There can be no question, when the author of the term 
primordial makes such an admission, that, other things being 
equal, the term first used should be perpetuated. But it may be 
stated that other things were not equal. They were not equal 
in the thoroughness with which the fauna was investigated, nor 
the correctness with which the stratigraphic relationships were 
stated, nor in the limitations which were placed on its extent. 
They were not equal in the comprehensive, uninterrupted prog- 
ress with which the respective investigations were carried on 
on different sides of the Atlantic, nor the completeness and 
costliness of publication. But it may be doubted whether any 
of these differences, or all of them, would warrant the unquali- 
fied adoption of the European term, to the exclusion of the 
American, against the right of priority for the American geol- 
ogist. Emmons did, it seems to me, all that was required, or 
that is now required, to establish his claim to the discovery of a 
new formation. He defined it geographically, stratigraphically, 
and palzontologically. No one else in America has applied any 
new name to it. It came in conflict, it is true, with another 
American designation, but no one now will urge the correctness 
of that opposing term. As between Taconic and primordial, 
both authors may be recognized and honored by confining the 
term Taconic to the identical horizon, or sub-fauna, in which it 
was described by Dr. Emmons, allowing the term primordial to 
embrace, as intended by Barrande, all the sub-faunas of the first 
una. 
The first (oldest) sub-fauna is characterized by the genus 
Paradoxides. : 
The second sub-fauna is characterized by Olenellus. 
The third sub-fauna is characterized by Dicelocephalus. 
(4). Taconic versus CAMBRIAN. 
But we cannot overlook the fact that ‘in Europe, and also in 
America, the term Cambrian is very generally applied to this 
fauna and the formation in which it is embraced, to the exclu- 
D of both Taconic and primordial. This is a very singular 
circumstance. The reaction which set in to do justice to Sedg- 
wick had such momentum that it swept over its own bounds and 
became itself an agent of injustice. . 
If the question of the relative dates at which the terms Taconic 
