130 Barrande and the Taconic System — Marcou. 
worse; that is to say for fear of falling entirely into the hands 
of "geologist politicians,'' another breaker which has constantly 
menaced them during the last twenty years. 
Fifty years of misrule cannot be blotted out in a few months. 
It will take a long time, several years at least, to obliterate the 
past,' and bring back a right spirit of honesty and fair play, 
and replace American geology as it was at the time of L. Van- 
uxem, Samuel G. Morton, Ebenezer Emmons, Charles T, Jack- 
son, T. Conrad, Charles Lyell and E. de Verneuil, all of them 
well-trained field practical geologists, excellent observers, 
scholars, and gentlemen. 
Adversaries of the Taconic. — The pathetic appeal of Bar- 
rande, which I shall repeat here for it is too good, fell on an 
association of deaf men. He says in his letter of the 14th of 
August, 1860* "I can well imagine, from the position previous- 
ly taken by our learned American brothers on the subject of the 
Taconic system, that the final solution of which I speak will 
not be obtained without debate, and perliaps some wounding of 
self-love, for some opinions that appear to be dominant must be 
abandoned. But experience has taught me that in such cases 
the most elevated minds turn always first to light, and put 
themselves at the head of the movement of reform." 
Unhappily there was not a single "elevated mind" among the 
adversaries of the Taconic; all resisted in one way or another, 
■contesting every point and granting always most ungracefully 
the concession of the existence and true geological position of 
the Primordial fauna, and of twenty-five thousand feet of fovssil- 
iferous strata below the Potsdam sandstone. 
Controlling everything in American geology, the association 
lead by Messrs Hall and Dana know well their list of American 
geologists. They feel sure that having and retaining in their 
hands a combination of the directors of the Geological Surveys 
of states and provinces, and of the general government of 
the United States and Canada Dominions, with all the scientific 
periodicals under their control and in their possession, that they 
will be able to encounter fearlessly the small band of op- 
ponents. 
From 1842 to 1860 they have easily suppressed all the obser- 
*"0a the Primordial fauna and the Taconic system by J. Barrande, with 
additional notes by J. Marcou," p. 376; and also '-The Taconic System" by 
J. Marcou, p. 183.' 
