35^ A. Winchell on the 'laconic Question. 
As to the region east and north of lake Champlain, investiga- 
tions equally assiduous have succeeded In showing that a con- 
siderable area is occupied by strata older than the Potsdam; and 
that they contain a fauna of a truly primordial character, whose 
geological position is lower than any fossiliferous strata known 
to either Murchison or Sedgwick. Nothing more is needed 
than this simple statement.^ 
Thus the investigations of forty years have shown that the 
central conception of Dr. Emmons was founded on fact. This 
was simply a system of fossiliferous strata older than the New 
York system. Such system has been demonstrated by the re- 
searches of many investigators — Perry, Barrande, Billings, Mar- 
cou, Ford and Walcott. "To him belongs," says Walcott, "the 
credit of recognizing and describing the Middle Cambrian series 
of North America, as a distinct formation, both on structural 
and palcEontologic grounds. * * * The central idea of 
which [Emmons' proposal] that a great series of Palieozoic 
strata, of pre-Potsdani age, existed east of the Hudson river 
shales of the valley of the Hudson and lake Champlain, we now 
know was correct."^ 
It signifies nothing that others — Dana, D wight, Walcott" — 
have shown that some strata of the New York system are in- 
cluded' among those described by Dr. Emmons as Taconic. Any 
amount of demonstration of such a proposition has no bearing 
against the conclusion that sub-Potsdam strata do exist, as 
Emmons alleged, and in the region originally circumscribed by 
the founder of the Taconic. 
Mr. Walcott, who seems disposed to do justice, expresses re- 
gret that he cannot apply the term Taconic to the series of fos- 
siliferous strata older than the Ordovician, the middle division 
of which Emmons distinguished "on structural and palteonto- 
logic grounds." But, if we do so, he says, " the great lower 
division described by Emmons as the typical Taconic, will be 
dropped entirely, and the Upper Taconic, which is not now 
1 The objections urged against the Taconic are discussed seriatim by 
ray hv-other,^ .Yi.V^^mcheW, in Aiiiericdu Geologist, Islavch., iS88, pp. 162-72. 
2 Walcott: Bull. U. S. Geol. Surv., No. 30, p. 65. 
^ See especially, Walcott's most recent paper, Am. Jour. Sci., (3), xxxv, 
229-42 — still to be continued. 
