A. Winchell on the Taconic Question. 357 
attained so prolonged a history as in some parts of North Amer- 
ica. Whatever the facts may be as to tlie upper Hmit of the 
Huronian, the designation commonly em]Dloyed for the system 
is clearly superseded by Taconic. This was the understanding 
of Dr. Emmons, though the contention seems to have dropped 
almost out of remembrance.^ In i860, in a letter to M. Marcou, 
speaking of a communication to the American Journal of Science, 
which was refused publication, he says, "I claimed that the 
Huronian was only the Taconic system." In 1S61, he wrote, 
*' It was ten years ago, I think, when I claimed Logan's Huro- 
nian system as nothing more than the Taconic." Unless, there- 
fore, we find the zone of the primordial fauna interposed 
between the typical Huronian and the Lower Silurian, showing 
the typical Huronian to stand for a zone of trul}^ azoic sediments, 
it v/ould appear that the name Huronian ought to be dropped 
out of use. 
IV. Validity and scope of the Taconic. 
I. Gi'oiiuds of opposition to the Taconic. It was from the 
beginning maintained by certain North American geologists, to 
whose judgment most of the others deferred, that the rocks 
within the area of the Taconic as defined by Dr. Emmons, were 
newer than the Potsdam sandstone, instead of older; and that 
their more ancient aspect than the other strata of the same age 
was due to metamorphism, It is not needful to consider with 
whom this view originated, nor to recall the discussions which 
have taken jDlace. It may be granted that palaeontological and 
structural investigations, carried on in the region south of lake 
Champlain, have succeeded long since, in showing that a con- 
siderable mass of strata embraced by Emmons in the Taconic, 
lies really within the New York system. It is not known, 
however, that no genuine sub-Potsdam Taconic occurs within 
the same area. Indeed, it has been shown while I write, that 
the quartzite series contains sub-Potsdam fossils, and extends 
from near Bennington in Vermont to Williamstown, Mass., and 
Stissing mountain in Pine Plains, Dutchess county, N. Y.^ 
1 This equivalence was urged by N. H. Winchell in his vice-presidential 
address before the Am. Assc. Adv. Sci. in 1SS4. — [Ed.] 
2 Walcott: The Tacofiic System of Ejujiwjis. Am. Jour. Sci., 3, xxxv, pp. 
234-6. 
