Biographical Notice of Ebenezer Emmons.- — Alarcou. 1 1 
that uncalled for, very troublesome joint paper of Barrande and 
Marcou. ) 
Poor Dr. Emmons was provoked in all sorts of ways, and 
treated with the greatest contempt. In his letter dated Raleigh, 
December 28, 1800. already published in part in my paper, "The 
Taconie system and its position in stratigraphic geology, " p. 188, 
Cambridge. 1SS.">. Emmons says: <>In fine, the persecution I 
suffered for opinion has been rarely equalled. Rogers said, in a 
Section discussion of the Taconie system, that as for the Taconie 
system it is dead ! dead ! dead ! ! ! with a significant pointing of 
his finger to myself ; and yet. there never was a plainer case on 
the face of the earth. " x 
The following are extracts from some of the letters of the hon- 
est colonel Jewett : 
Geological Rooms. Albany, January 10, 1861. 
My Deak Sin : 
On my return yesterday from a journey I found the pamphlets ( "On 
the Primordial fauna and the Taconie system, by J. Barrande, with ad- 
ditional notes, by .1. Marcou.'" Boston, December, I860.) you were so 
kind as to send me and for which I beg you to accept my very sincere 
thanks. 
I feel a great interest in the subject you have so well sustained, and I 
hope that the Taconie system, the most important part of our New 
York section, will no longer he ignored. Taking professor Hall's teach- 
ing without investigation. I taught others that the Potsdam sandstone 
ir rhirty-three years later the same spirit with, if possible, an aggra- 
vation of arrogance, inspired the writer of the paper entitled : ' - A brief 
history of Taconie ideas" (Amer. Jr. Sc., vol. xxxvi, Dec. 1888; pp. 
410-427). in which the Taconie system is declared again dead. A pro- 
fessor of geology, graduate of Yale College and consequently an old 
pupil of Mr. J. D. Dana, says in a letter to me, dated May 6, 1889: 
"When after saying for fifty years that a certain thing is dead and con- 
tinuing to bury it during that period, the idea is carried to impar- 
tial spectators that the corpse is quite a lively affair to refuse to be 
buried. My attention was attracted to the Taconie question by the fact 
that, in spite of repeated interments, the Taconie system -like Banquo's 
ghost — would not stay quiet. I was further impressed with the un- 
seemly warmth of the sextons who had so frequently officiated, and I 
was led to study the question in an entirely impartial spirit, and 1 have 
concluded that Dr. Bmmons and yourself were and have been in tin' 
right. " 
The same year another writer attacked Dr. Emmons on every possi- 
ble point; palaeontology, stratigraphy, lithology, classification, use of 
the name Taconie. right of priority, as a collector of fossils, and even 
as to the disappearance of his geological map from the firsl volume of 
the Agriculture of New York ( '"The Taconie system of Bmmons, ami 
the use of the name Taconie in geologic nomenclature." by <'. D. Walcott, 
Amer. Jr. Sri. vol. XXXV, March. April and May. lsss. pp. gog 307 
and 394.) 
