232 I'lie American Geoloyisf. April, 1895 
Fritz Noetlinj^, tlie ('ainbriau consists of I'oiir parts, as fol- 
lows, in descoiuiing ordci-: 
1. Iiliay.-iiiwalla <rr(>ui). or sail crvstal iiscudiiinoriili z<inr. 
2. .Iiitaita .lii'diip, ur iiia^iii'siaii saiulsloiic. 
'•>. Khussuk ijrroup, or Xcobolus beds. 
4. Klifvvi-Ji iiToiip, or purple sandstone."' 
Olenellus here occurs near the top of No. 8, the Kussak 
group. Below it are found Neobolus warthi, II yolithes wvnni, 
with annelids and bivalves. According to the limitation that 
has assumed Olenellus as in the basal zone of the Oinibrian, 
the whole of No. 4 and the most of No. 3 would be excluded 
from it. 
In Ameri<^a the Pai'adoxides horizon was believed for several 
3'ears to be at the liottom, even when Olenellus had been dis- 
covered, because the structural relations were not evident, 
and because both in Bohemia and in Britain Paradoxides 
only had, at that time, been found in the lowest fossiliferous 
strata. WheJi this error was corrected for America, by Mr. 
Walc()tt, who visited Newfoundland and verified the Scandi- 
navian order of faunal succession, the idea was at once as- 
sumed that the Scandinavian basal plane of the Cambrian 
should be taken generally as the Cambrian base line. This as- 
sumption has been j^opular with paleontologists. It gives a 
definite plane, from a biological point of view, but it ignores 
greater and more significant physical events which have 
separated the history of the globe into "times," and the 
rocks into systems. It also curtails the original definition of 
Cambrian, in the country of its nativity, for it has already led 
to the attempted assignment of a large part of the basal Cam- 
brian to the ])re-Cambrian, which is, in other words, Archean, 
although such beds are strikingly unlike any known Archean. 
Reference is here nuule to the Torridonian antl to the Long- 
myndian. 
The Taconic of New Brun'^wick has been very fully inves- 
tigated by Matthew. In his summai\y conclusionsf it ap))ears 
that the Taconic is there divisible into four parts, the low- 
est being the Etcheminian. separable from the overlying por- 
tions by some kind of physical disturbance which left traces 
*()n the Cambrian t'ormalion of the eastern Salt I'anue. Records lieol. 
Sur. India, vol. xxvn. pt. :!, pp. 71-.S(i, ]8!)4. 
fTransnclioiis of tlie Uoyal Society of Canada, ISU:;. 
