Editorial Comment. 405 
they confidently expect the s;inie friendly cooperation, and they 
expect to render the same f)r better service to American geol- 
ogy. N. H. w. 
The Taconic according to Rexevier. 
Following is Renevier's reason for not adopting the advice 
of Lapworth as to the use of the term Taconic in his lately 
published Chronographe yeologique, to which attention was 
called in the American GEOLoaisx last month : 
Georgien. C'est I'age le phis ancien, dans letiuel le vie organique soit 
certaine et incontestee, mais la faune en est peu abondante etMinparfait- 
ement connue. La frequence relative de pistes d'annelides, lui avait 
faitdonnerle nom de Anuelidien. M. Lapworth vondrait appliquer a 
cet etage Tancien nora Americain de Taconien, maisce terme seraitune 
source de confusion, M. Walcott* affinne eneffet qu'iln'y a pas trace de 
fossiles de la faune primordiale dans le Taconic range; done le type est 
fautif. D'autre part le nom de Taconien a ete revendique pour la serie 
entieredu Caiubrieu, par M. Marcou et par d'autres. II mauquerait 
absolument de precision pour designer Tune des Stages. 
It will be seen that the decision against the use of the term 
Taconic was based on the statement of Mr. Walcott to the 
effect that in the Taconic range there is not known any 
trace of primordial fossils. The writer has considered this 
statement of Mr. Walcott in earlier volumes of the Geologistj 
on two occasions. 
In the first place it should be noted that this remark of Mr. 
Walcott was not published in the Bulletin of the U. S. Geo- 
logical Survey (No. 81) to which M. Renevier refers for 
authority, at least the writer is not able to find it 
there, but in an ad captandum argument published in the 
American Journal of Science just prior to the meeting of the 
London session of the International Congress of Geologists, ■•■ 
Immediately after its publication this statement was analyzed 
(Am. Geol., vol.ii, p. 221) audit was confronted with another 
quotation from Mr. Walcott's writing, in which he affirmed 
that he had found primordial fossils at over one hundred lo- 
*Bull. 81, U. S. Geol. Survey. 
tVol. II, pp. 220-222, 1888. Vol. vi, p. 217, 1890: What constitutes the 
Taconic range of mountains? 
XOp. cit., vol. XXXV (3), p. 391. "The name is inapplicable. The 
Taconic range, from which the Taconic system was named, is not known 
to contain a fossil of the first fauna, or a furmatiou that contains one 
elsewhere." 
