Barrande and the Taeonic System—Marc oil 127 
Emmons 1 discoveries and nomenclature, and maintained without 
flagging and sternly the rights of American classification and 
nomenclature of the Lower Paleozoic strata. Barrande has 
stepped forward without any hesitation or reticence. His me¬ 
moir and letters [thirteen letters have been published by Marcou 
in the Proceed. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist, and Proceed. American 
Acad. Arts and 5c/.] on the subject are models of justice and 
honesty, entirely cosmopolitan in character, and free from all 
prejudice as to nationalities or as to observers. 
On one side are men who have constantly, during fifty years 
united their efforts t@ suppress and destroy the greatest discove¬ 
ries made in American geology; and on the other side men who 
have sustained the truth in its full meaning. On one side men 
who care nothing about names used in geological nomenclature, 
and on the other side men who think that priority of discoveries 
cannot be set aside. On one side men who prefer the mainte¬ 
nance of their errors even at the expense of the national record, 
and on the other side men of “elevated minds, 11 cosmopolitan 
in the best acceptance of the word who do not hesitate to recog¬ 
nize truth when they find it in America as well as in Europe. 
Friends of the Taconic. —This paper is addressed to the 
independent American geologists, who have shown already by 
their publications of papers on the matter, and also by their 
private good words of sympathy for the cause of discoveries 
made on this continent, that they have at heart only the truth 
and the good reputation of American geology. 
The future generation of geologists will not easily understand 
how it came that the best and most creditable observations made 
on American classification and nomenclature, have been kept 
so long in the back-ground, and how errors of the most stupen¬ 
dous character have been maintained and adhered to with such 
persistency. Wounded self love combined with a jealousy un- 
paralled in geology have never acted so openly and with so 
much help from geologists who know not what they do, and 
who being unable, either by their subordinate position or by 
their limited knowledge, to form or express an independent 
opinion, have simply fallen into the ranks at the command of 
their leaders. 
Billings had the courage to publish in 1872, the following 
remarks, which are applicable even now: “It frequently hap- 
