6 The American Qeologist. Jan. 1891 
Below, Emmons adds the Old Red system, the New Red system. 
and the Tertiary or blue and yellowish clays of Champlain. To 
l>r. Emmons are duo. the ('hazy limestone, the Black marble of 
the Isle La Motte, the Loraine shales, the Champlain group, the 
Ontario group, the Helderberg series, the Erie group, and finally 
the Taconic system; achievements which it was given to no one 
in America nor in Europe to attain. 
Muring the same year, 1842, the final report of the third dis- 
trict, by L. Vanuxem, was published ; and in this at p. 13, we 
have a tabular view identical witli the one of Dr. Emmons, the 
only changes 1 icing the name Loraine shales, which is replaced 
by Hudson River group, the grey sandstone is removed from the 
Champlain division, into the Ontario division, the Onondaga salt 
group and the Manlius water-lime are put into the Helderberg 
series. Vanuxem takes special care to say, at pp. 12 and 22, 
that the names of Taconic, Champlain. Ontario, Erie and Hel- 
derberg have been given by Emmons, and that "the views of Dr. 
Emmons were cordially embraced and adopted with some modi- 
fications. " The two other final reports of the first and fourth dis- 
tricts, were not issued until one year later, in 1843, and the first 
volume of palaeontology in 1847. The dates and facts signalized 
by Emmons and Yanuxem fix beyond any possible doubt and dis- 
cussion the priority of the classification and the leading part 
taken in it by Dr. Emmons. Yanuxem accepted and encouraged 
the adoption of the Taconic system, until his death in January. 
L848. 
The great value of Emmons' discoveries, classification and no- 
menclature, was shown at once by the very violent opposition 
with which certain geologists received them. It is always dan- 
gerous to be too far in advance of your contemporaries ; and Dr. 
Emmons was quickly reminded that good and acute observations 
are not sufficient in the view of some young ambitious geologists, 
whose knowledge and power of observation are not equal to their 
desire of notoriety as great observers. His report of the secoud 
district of New York was attacked at once by Henry D. Rogers. 
in his •Address delivered at the meeting of the Association of 
American Ceologists and Naturalists, held in Washington, May. 
1844," New York. 1844, at pp. 16-19, who in substance says : 
that the so-called Taconic system was simply the Champlain sys- 
tem ■disguised by some change of mineral type and by igneous 
