The Taconic — Marcou. 75 
accident is very common in the Jura and in the Alps. I have 
quoted only the '•'•anotjialie stratigraphiqUe de Petit-Coeur en 
Taj-entaise^'' because Mr. Lory has shown that in Europe, it 
was a stratigraphist, Elie de Beaumont, backed by other strati- 
graphists, Angelo Sismonda, Sipion Gras, etc., who wanted 
to refer a Carboniferous flora to the Jurassic system ; while here 
in America, it is a palaeontologist, Mr. Walcott, backed by 
other palaeontologists, Messrs. Beecher, Hall, Ford, etc., who 
want to refer an Upper Taconic group of graptolites to the 
Utica slates, a transfer over the whole Champlain system of the 
third graptolite zone of the Taconic system. Something analo- 
gous and a repetition of the error made by Mr. Hall for the 
primordial trilobites of Georgia, who transferred them from the 
middle Taconic to and even above the Lorraine shales. 
After this explanation of the mistake made by Mr. Walcott, 
in regard to a "considerable portion of the upper Taconic 
slates" of Emmons, the age which he has assigned to his so- 
called Calciferous-Chazy-Trenton, which according to his de- 
scription, section and geological map lay inclosed between two 
primordial faunas (the Quartzite and the third graptolitic zone) 
is untenable and disposed of. Nothing can extricate Mr. 
Walcott's No. 3 from its stratigraphical position, and all the over- 
lapping faults, or any other faults, so freely used by the adver- 
saries of the Taconic, cannot help them out of this dilemma. 
One word more and I have finished with those Swanton 
graptolitic slates of the Hudson river valley, taken constantly 
by the adversaries of Dr. Emmons as belonging to the Hudson 
group and placed above or with the Utica slates. Mr. Walcott 
visited, in company with Mr Ford, a place in Schodack Landing 
N. Y., described in 1S85 by the last named observer in Anier. 
Jour. 6'c/., vol. XIX, p. 16, under the title: "Observations upon 
the Great Fault in the vicinity of Schodack Landing, Rensse- 
laer county, N. Y." In his visit Mr. Walcott " saw the hade 
of the fault, the slikensides on the opposing surfaces, and broke 
out graptolites (no specific names) from the Hudson shale, 
beneath, and within six inches of the fault line" {^Loc. cit. p. 
319). If we trust the section published by Mr. Ford at p. 19 
of his paper, there is no discordance of stratification whatever 
between what he calls Lorraine shales (Hudson group of 
