1 1 4 The America?! Geologist. February, i9oo 
THE NOMENCLATURE OF THE NEW YORK SERIES 
OF GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. 
By John M. Claeke and Charles Schucheet. 
The prime outcome of the work of the four geologists, 
Mather, Emmons, Vanuxem, Hall, engaged upon the original 
survey of the state of New York, was the promulgation of a 
series of terms designating and classifying the rock formations. 
Many of the terms adopted in the final reports issued in 1842- 
1843 had been previously introduced in the annual reports of 
one and another of the geologists, but that finally announced 
was the mutual agreement of the four. Tradition and contem- 
pcrary record have given us some evidence that differences of 
opinion as to the merits of various terms erected during the 
progress of the survey were not wholly reconciled by the final 
pronouncement which rejected a goodly number of provisional 
names. It was clearly the purpose of the geologists to insti- 
tute and defend a classification of the older rocks, the strati- 
graphic units of which were to be of approximately equal value. 
In several instances subdivision of such units was recognized; 
thus Hall and Vanuxem especially added the term group to 
some units as indicative of a minor subdivision of the strata. 
Emmons avoided this term wholly and Mather seldom em- 
ployed it. 
The geologists also made use of a broader assemblage of 
the units into associations termed by some of them groups, by 
others divisions. These were four in number, namely, begin- 
ning at the bottom: Champlain, Ontario, Helderberg. Erie, 
and a fifth, Catskill, was employed by Mather. There was 
pretty uniform agreement in the use of these broader terms 
and such slight discrepancy as became apparent in their appli- 
cation was no more than an expression of imperfect knowledge 
and of personal equation. It was a genuine misfortune to the 
New York nomenclature that disturbed and drove out these 
terms which are supremely adapted to the unequaled paleozoic 
succession from which they emanated. In many respects they 
meet the actual conditions far more satisfactorily than the 
European terms which we are now carrying. They are en- 
titled to respect for their venerableness and, where consistent 
with the present state of knowledge, to recognition for their 
merit. 
