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Observations on the Unification of Geological Nomenclature. 269 
found in the use, in nomenclature, of the “Cincinnati Group.” The 
Trenton, Utica Slate, and Hudson River Groups had been long estab- 
lished and carefully defined, when some one, supposing, without ex- 
amination, that the Utica Slate Group did not exist in the vicinity of 
Cincinnati, and that the rocks belonged either to the Trenton or Hud- 
son River Groups, or to both, proposed to call the exposure the “ Cin- 
cinnati Group.” The black slate which characterizes the Utica Slate 
Group in New York does not exist at Cincinnati, though calcareous 
slates and shales of the same age do,’ but they so graduate into the 
Trenton Group below, and the Hudson River above, that the lines of 
separation have not been accurately ascertained. It is very clear, how- 
ever, that if the Utica Slate Group had thinned out in its extension 
westwardly before reaching Cincinnati, there would be no excuse for call- 
ing the Trenton or Hudson River Group, or both of them together, by a 
newname, Yet there are some who will persist in using the name “ Cin- 
cinnati Group,’’ because they don’t know whether it is of the age of 
the Trenton, Utica Slate, or Hudson River Group, or of the age of all 
three, and they are bound to leave their readers in the same hopeless 
confusion. 
Another kind of synonomy, much more to be deplored, exists, where 
a group has been named and thoroughly defined, and, for some trivial 
reason, the geologists of another locality use another name for rocks of 
the same age without regard to priority in nomenclature. As an illus- 
tration, the Calciferous Group was established and defined so as to in- 
clude rocks other than the calciferous sandrock, and ten years after- 
ward rocks of the same age on the Mississippi river were called the 
“ Lower Magnesian limestone,” and the Wisconsin geologists persist in 
the use of the latter name, because they say the word calciferous is not 
admissible, in that State, from the lithological character of the rock. 
A reason that has no application whatever, if the foregoing definition 
of a group is correct, and a reason if carried out, in all cases, would 
utterly destroy geological nomenclature, for no system can be estab- 
lished upon lithology. 
Many other illustrations of synonymy, founded upon like errors of 
judgment, might be adduced, without including that larger class pro- 
posed by men who have been employed upon State or Government sur- 
veys, without the necessary qualifications, and who have suggested 
names through sheer ignorance and stupidity. These names ought not 
to be mentioned, even as synonyms, for that is giving to them more 
_ consideration than they are entitled to receive, and as to many of them 
more than was required for their publication. 
