iy6 Barrande and the Taconic System — Marcou. 
Europe, and is extending gradually all over the world. In that 
extension America has proved to be a pioneer of the first order; 
and not contented with recognizing the great geological system 
of Europe, has succeeded in creating the most important of all 
the systems, because it is the fir.-^t stepping stone and conse- 
quently the base of the whole structure, discovering at one 
stroke the Taconic system and the Primordial fauna. A dis- 
covery accepted and proclaimed as good and true by Barrande, 
the "father of the Primordial fauna." 
The Secretary of the International Commission for the uni- 
formity of nomenclature, professor G. Dewalque, has accepted 
the just claim of America, and in his two reports at Berlin in 
1885, and at Loudon in 1888, he has insisted on the recognition 
to America of the right of having first discovered and proposed 
the first and oldest system of stratified rocks containing special 
faunas. M. Dewalque with great candor and justice says, '"that 
the acceptance of the Taconic system in the general nomencla- 
ture has the advantage to give a place to American geology; at 
the same time that it conforms to rights of priority as they exist 
in natural history.'' 
So Barrande and Dewalque, the two most competent men in 
Europe on questions of nomenclature, have recognized and pub- 
licly made known that to America belongs the honor of having 
established the Taconic system and discovered the Primordial 
fauna. The competence of Barrande is indisputable; as to pro- 
fessor Dewalque he was elected secretary of the commission for 
the uniformity of nomenclature at the congress of Bologna in 
1881, and his numerous and remarkable memoirs and geological 
maps, joined to his well established reputation for independence, 
and the honesty of his character as a free geologist {geologue 
lihre), is well established. 
MuRCHisoNiAN AND Sedg-^vickian CONTROVERSY. — In Eng- 
land the questions of priority and discoveries of the Taconic and 
its Primordial fauna have never been contested in any paper 
or periodical article.* Privatel}', I know that almost every 
English geologist admits the A^merican claim as right and in- 
* Professor Charles Lapworth, is the tirst English geologist, to my knowl- 
edge, who has admitted the priority of Dr. Emmons' discovery of the 
Olenellus fauna, in 1844, ("On the discovery of the Olenellus fauna in the 
Lower Cambrian rocks of Britain," Geol. Mag., vol. v, November, 1888, p. 
484, London.) 
