112 The American Geologist. February, 1897 
important faunas in the Cliazy and Trenton formations. Tliose 
sporadic fossils recall the "colonies" of Barrande, and by their 
rarity and stratigraphic positions among an enormous mass of 
slates, do not allow to call the very limited beds of limestone 
in which they are found true Chazy, or true Black River and 
Trenton formations. 
A memoir entitled: '-The value of the term 'Hudson River? 
in geologic nomenclature,'" ( Bull. Geol. Soc. America, vol. i, pp, 
335-356), aims at classifying those five thousand feet of strata 
as belonging to the Lorraine shales: that is to say, to place 
them at the top of the second fauna, or Champlain system. 
The aiithor, Mr. C. D. Walcott, after saying that "the strata 
of the Hudson group cannot be delimited clearly, as the base 
and summit of the series are not shown." does not hesitate to 
refer the Swanton and Quebec-City group to the formation of 
Lorraine of Sandy creek, Jefferson county, although he admits 
that no true Lorraine fossils have ever been found there; the 
nearest place containing Lorraine fossils being close by Albany, 
west of the Hudson river. As to the complete absence of the 
great graptolitic fauna in the interior of the state of New 
York, Mr. Walcott says "it was prevented by some barrier." 
What barrier he does not explain ; making use of it, not 
only for the unlucky graptolites, but also to explain 
the absence of the true Lorraine fauna from the valley of 
the Hudson, using imaginary barriers to prevent extension 
of faunas, without regard to stratigraphy and simply because 
barriers of some sort are wanted to give an explanation of a 
classification made absolutely against all rules; Just as at some 
other places invisible faults are called to aid for the same pur- 
pose. Certainly such principles of classification were never 
thought of by Alexander Brongniart, nor William Smith, even 
less by Ebenezer Emmons and Barrande. Lately, the geolog- 
ical survey €>f Canada has given a table of formations for the 
border country of the United States, comprisingPhillipsburgh 
— the typical locality — and being a continuation of the strat- 
igraphy of the vicinity of Swanton, which disagrees almost 
in toto with the classification previously given of the Hudson 
River group by the late palaeontologist, now director of the U> 
S, Geological Survey. In it the Quebec-City formation, or 
Swanton slates, is placed below the great Trenton formation. 
