1887] The Taconic Question Restated. 11g 
of the Matinal, and were thus virtually made a part of the Second 
Graywacke. It is not too much to say that this denial by Mather 
of the existence of the First or Transition Graywacke, and the 
confounding of the great belt of this (which stretches from the 
lower St. Lawrence to the Susquehanna, and beyond) with the 
Second Graywacke, was a great and fatal error in the stratig- 
raphy of the whole region, from the consequences of which 
American geology has not yet escaped. It was, however, a legiti- ` 
mate consequence of the hypothesis of regional metamorphism 
applied by Mather to the great underlying series consisting, in 
descending order, of the Transition Argillite, the Primitive Lime- 
rock, and the Primitive Quartz-rock of Eaton, and of his attempt 
to identify these with the members of the Champlain division. 
$9. Rocks belonging to the Second Graywacke are indeed found 
upon the banks of the Hudson River, and Mather had already, 
in his fourth annual report, given the name of Hudson slates to 
what he rightly regarded as the equivalent of those named 
Loraine shale by Emmons, and Pulaski shales by Vanuxem, in 
their respective districts. The latter, however, noticed in the 
Central district of New York besides these shales (which, in its 
northwest portion, are directly overlaid by the Gray or Oneida 
sandstone) an underlying series of greenish argillites and sand- 
stones, including some graptolitic shales, but destitute of the 
fauna of the upper division. The lower, named by him the 
Frankfort division, appear in the southeast part of the district 
without the overlying Pulaski or Loraine division, the two being, 
according to Vanuxem, “ not co-extensive with each other,” and 
so distinct that he insisted on treating them separately, inclining 
to the opinion that they ought not to be put together in local 
geology. He further declared that they are separate in Pennsyl- 
vania, the characteristic Pulaski shales appearing in the Nippe- 
nose valley west of the Susquehanna, while the Frankfort slates — 
and sandstones are seen to the east of the North Mountain in 
the Kittatinny or Appalachian valley, and include the roofing- 
slates of the Delaware. These rocks in the latter region are, in 
fact, the Transition Argillite and the First Graywacke, which 
latter is there seen, in some localities, resting upon the roofing- 
slates, though in many others, in the absence of this First Gray- 
wacke, the same Argillite is directly overlaid by the Levant 
sandstone of the Second Graywacke. ` 
