The Taconic — Marcou. 77- 
required, it being a question of dates, publications, and discove- 
ries made by Emmons and Barrande and denied by Mr. Walcott.. 
Between the honesty of the discoverers of the Taconic system,, 
the primordial fauna, and the exact stratigraphical position of the 
primordial fauna, and the partisan and unpatriotic action of an- 
observer who is contradicting each year what he has said the 
year before, the choice is not doubtful. 
As to the allusion of Mr. Walcott to Mr. Barrande's visit to- 
England in 1850 (not 1851 Walcott) and his determination of 
the age of the primordial fauna found in the typical Cambriaa 
area of Wales [Zoc. cit. p. 327], referring to Barrande's paper 
of 1 85 1 [^Bulletin Soc. geol. France^ tome viii, pp. 207-212],, 
it proves how little Mr. Walcott is acquainted with what Bar- 
rande did in England, during his visit in November and Decem- 
ber, 1850, and how he misunderstood Barrande's paper. In 
visiting the Museum of Practical Geology, Jermyn street, in 
London, in company with De la Bdche, Edward Forbes, Ram-^ 
say, Jukes and Salter, M. Barrande was struck by a specimen 
of a fragment of a large trilobite, tvithout any so>'t of label. 
He recognized at once a Paradoxides^ and said, " You must 
have in England the primordial fauna, if that specimen is- 
English." No one knew where the specimen came from; only 
they were all certain that it was found in the British islands. 
And at the same time all protested that the primordial fauna of 
Bohemia did not exist in any part of the whole united kingdom^ 
However, Forbes and Salter, the two palaeontologists, were both 
ready to admit that the primordial fauna must exist somewhere 
in Wales, notwithstanding the denegation of thestratigraphists;: 
and Salter from that day began his researches for Paradoxides 
in Wales. But it was not until 1S62 that he was rewarded in 
his persistent researches by the discovery at St. David, in situ 
of " a gigantic trilobite long looked for in Britain," described by 
him in February, 1863, under the name of Paradoxides Davidis 
J^^uart. youru. Geol. Soc, London, vol. xix, p. 275 and yol. xx,. 
p. 233], and regarded wrongly as belonging to the "Lingula 
flags of Wales," as it is far too high up, by several thousand 
feet, in the true series of the lower palaeozoic strata of British 
isles. 
I will now give M. Barrande's opinions in favor of the just 
