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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



In 1850, Desor 1 gave some account of the fossiliferous clays 

 and sands of the St Lawrence valley and very appropriately 

 called them Lawrentian. They constitute the only example of 

 a geologic formation whose principal and most typical area lies 

 within the basin of this majestic river. Only one other name 

 is so suggestive of their distribution, that of Quebec in which 

 province they chiefly lie. 



In 1853, Logan unfortunately employed practically the same 

 name in the term Laurentian in the official reports of the geologi- 

 cal survey of Canada for a group of rocks believed to be at 

 the base of the geologic column, and Desor's proposal failed 

 of adoption despite the claim for priority which might have 

 been made for it. In fact Desor's term appears to have been 

 overlooked till the Vermont geologists came to decide on a name 

 for the marine deposits of recent date within the area of that 

 state, when it appears a second unfortunate choice attended 

 the naming of these ill appreciated marine deposits. 



In the Report on the Geology of Vermont by Edward and 

 Charles Hitchcock and Ha gar the term Champlain clays was 

 adopted to designate the marine fossiliferous beds along the 

 Vermont shore of Lake Champlain, the name being proposed in 

 9 part for the reason as stated that Desor's prior term had been 

 appropriated and was in established use for rocks of a very 

 different age. In this connection the belief was held that the 

 term Champlain group introduced into the New York reports by 

 E. Emmons in 1811 had fallen into disuse, a condition in which 

 the term has certainly been up to its proposed revival by Clarke 

 and Schuchert in 1899. 



In the employment of the term Champlain by the Vermont 

 geologists in 1861 its meaning was made sufficiently clear as 

 applying to the marine beds which there followed the glacial 

 drift, though the formational term clays seems rather to parallel 

 it with the biologic term Leda clay proposed by J. W. Dawson 

 in 1857, neither term being strictly applicable to the entire series 

 of deposits laid down under this marine invasion, a fact which 

 was partially recognized in Canada by the use of the term Saxi- 

 cava sand in the same year. The term Champlain having been 



^ost. Soc. Nat. Hist Proo. 1S50. 3:357-58. 



