N . H. Winchell en the 'Taconic. 163, 
that the term Taconic makes appeal, and in the liglit of them a 
few objections are here considered. 
What is the Taconic? 
Dr. Emmons officially announced it in 1S4::,' but called at- 
tention to the fact that it had been studied, and written about 
in the American Journal of Science many years before, the 
earliest mention beingin 1819, by Prof. Dewey." "The Taconic 
System^ as its name is intended to indicate, lies along both sides 
of the Taconic range of mountains, whose direction is nearly 
north and south, or for a great distance parallel with the bound- 
ary line between the states of New York, Connecticut, Massa- 
chusetts and Vermont. * * * after passing out of the state 
they are found stretching through the whole length of Ver- 
mont, and into Canada, as far north as Quebec. * * * They 
are not a part of the former group [ The Champla'ui group'\ in a 
metamorphic state. * * * We find no fossils in the rocks 
of which I am speaking, * * * they can be i:egarded in no ' 
other light than as inferior to the Potsdam sandstone. * * * 
the equivalent of the Lower Cambrian of Sedgwick."' His 
diagrams exhibit an unconformit}' at the passage of his Taconic 
into the rocks of the Champlain division. 
In 1844, Dr. Emmons issued a pamphlet containing a revision 
of his Taconic system. This was subsequently included as a 
portion of his Report on the Agriculture of Nexv 2'ork, pub- 
lished in 1846. In the mean time his "system" had been antag- 
onized and severely criticised not only by his colleagues on the 
New York survey but bv numerous other prominent geologists, 
who, without exception, insisted that the Taconic was the equiva- 
lent of some portions of the New York system in a metamorphic 
state. This objection is the same that had been urged from the 
first, and it was on this point of divergence that Emmons had 
created his system. Nothing new had been discovered by his 
* Geology of New York; second district, Emmons, 1S42, p.. 135. 
2 American Journal of Science [i] i, 337; and ii, 246. Prof. Dewey de- 
scribed a section from Williamstown to Troy. This was the first section 
across the Taconic system. At Troy however he notes a change in the 
slates. 
^ Geology of New York ;__sccoiui district, pp. 13S-163. 
