14 The America/n Geologist. Jan. i89i 
tried in 1862 and 1863 the sending in different small installments 
of only one eop} r each of Barrande's important memoir and my 
two papers of 1861 and 18G2. As his wife succeeded in reaching 
him in 1SG3, it is probable that Dr. Emmons saw our three papers 
and that he was cognizant before going to his grave that Barrande 
had established beyond any doubt and forever, his claims as the 
discoverer of the Primordial fauna and the right of American geol- 
ogy to name the strata containing it " the Taconic system." 
As I have said before, the masterly and extremely important 
memoir of Barrande, "is a model of clearness, of straightforward 
opinions on the Taconic system, as well stratigraphic as palaeon- 
tologic, and the most honest protest ever published on any contro- 
verted geological question." ("Barrande and the Taconic S}'s- 
tem," by Jules Marcou, Amer. Geologist, February, 1889, p. 
120.) 
I cannot end better my exposition of Dr. Emmons" great 
achievement, than in translating the last paragraph of Barrande's 
chapter ••Observations generales sur la faune Taconique." at p. 
297 (Loc cit) in which he says : "If the distinction of different 
local horizons in the primordial fauna is one day pointed out in 
North America — even without any regard to the present classifica- 
tion and nomenclature — the name Taconic System will not have 
re-echoed in vain in both hemispheres." 
Good and great Barrande, his noble words will always remain 
and be quoted by all geologists, and the two names of Emmons 
and Barrande are attached forever to the oldest fossiliferous strata 
of our world. They are the discoverers and they are the classifi- 
cators. 
In order not to interrupt the exposition of Emmons' Taconic 
system and its special fauna first discovered by him, I have neg- 
lected to speak of his work in another field of geology ; for his ac- 
tivity was not entirely confined to the oldest strata. Emmons 
was appointed state geologist for North Carolina in 1851, and 
commenced the work January, 1852. In November of the same 
year he presented his "First Annual Report," in which he de- 
scribed and referred to their right place the coal fields of North 
Carolina, classifying them as the equivalent of the Letterv-Kohl 
(Triassic system) of Germany. « 
In 1856, Dr. Emmons published his ( « Geological Report of the 
Midland Counties of North Carolina," Raleigh and New York, 
