Methods of Stratigraphy. — Winchell. 347 
vague idea of geological antiquity was attached. About this 
time the word Taconic was applied by Dr. Erwrnons to a part 
of these intermediate "primitive" strata, which were at first 
regarded as wholly non-fossiliferous and comparable to the 
Lower Cambrian of Prof. Sedgwick both in their non-fossilif- 
erous character and in their stratigraphic position. The 
unfortunate controversy which grew up between Dr. Emmons 
and his colleagues on the New York survey easily transgressed 
the Canadian borders and involved the officers of the Cana- 
dian survey. From this controversy Logan and his assistant 
Murray for some years held aloof. He saw in Canada only 
the "Laurentian" under which term he included all the gran- 
ites, schists, (crystalline and semi-crystalline), also the 
gneisses and gabbro rocks he met with — in short everything 
that he found lying below the Potsdam sandstone." The first 
distinct use of the term ''Metamorphic group" by Mr. Logan, 
so far as I have observed, was in its application to some 
gneisses that have since been included in the Laurentian. 
Indeed Mr. Logan distinctly states'^ that the term Laurentian 
was designedly substituted for the term Metamorphic series, 
"since the latter is applicable to any series of rocks in an 
altered condition, and might occasion confusion." If we may 
form an opinion from the scanty statements that have been 
published as to the principles and motives that actuated the 
authors of the ''Huronian system." we are compelled to state 
that it was their design to give an American name to those 
strata which had in England been placed by Sedgwick in his 
Lower Cambrian. Mr. Logan had seen a great series on the 
north shore of lake Superior in 1846 which, while overlying 
the "primitive," yet at a later date were seen, on the north 
shore of lake Huron, to lie unconf jrmably below the "fossilif- 
erous rocks," i.e. the Trenton and Hudson River limestones and 
shales. Ignoring the early attempt of Emmons to supply an 
American designation for this same interval (viz. Taconic) and 
referring to areas in the Northwest which were then and were 
for many years practically inaccessible to the geologists of 
the world, and having the favorable cooperation of all the 
opponents of Dr. Emmons' Taconic, the name that was pub- 
lished in Paris and was subsequently employed in the reports 
"Canadian reports for 1852-53; 1849. p. 8. 
" Report for 1852-3. p. 8. 
