Report of the Sub-Committee on the 
Lower Paleozoic. 
N. H. WmCHELL, 
REPORTER. 
In response to the appointment as reporter on the Lower Pale- 
ozoic at the meeting of the American Committee of the Inter- 
national Congress of Geologists, held at Albany, in April last, 
I beg leave to offer the following report. 
A short conference between Professors Williams and Steven- 
son and myself resulted in an understanding between ourselves 
as to how much of the paleozoic column should be included in 
the term Lower Paleozoic. It was agreed that the rock-masses 
containing fossils, lying below the generally recognized base of 
the Devonian in this country (the Cauda-GaUi grit), should be 
considered as belonging to the Lower Paleozoic — in other words, 
the Silurian and Cam6Han strata as now generally recognized. 
Your reporter finds it difficult to divest himself of his per- 
sonal predilections, and to approach the task of presenting a digest 
of the aggregate opinion of American geologists that may differ 
from him in their opinions, and in their estimates of the impor- 
tance of scientific data and of historical facts ; and he begs your 
forbearance at the outset, and can only assure the Committee that 
he has striven to deal impartially with all the evidence and 
opinions that have come to his notice. 
Besides the general notice published by the Secretary of the 
American Committee (Dr. Frazer), but little further effort was 
made to elicit expressions of personal opinion from individual 
geologists. Some opinions, however, sent to Dr. Frazer, in response 
