46 
GENERAL VIEW OF THE TACONIC SYSTEM. 
I feel prepared to lay before the American geologists the results of my observations. In 
doing this, my design is to present them not only with the additional evidence I have 
recently acquired of the truth of my former position respecting this system, but also, as 
far as circumstances will permit, with the whole evidence in regard to it. I do this for 
the purpose of correcting some errors, and elucidating the subject more fully, as well as 
making it of greater value to American geology. In the following pages, I believe the 
reader will be satisfied that in these rocks we have, for this country at least, the true 
palaeozoic base , and that in them exists those organic forms which are strictly entitled to the 
designation protozoic. 
§ 2. Opinions of geologists on the taconic and Cambrian systems. 
The published opinions of geologists in regard to the Taconic rocks, it is deemed will 
be of sufficient interest to merit a transcription in these pages. I give them in the order 
of their publication. The first, then, is from the Report of Prof. Mather, one of my 
colleagues in the New-York Survey, who, in his preface, has penned the following para¬ 
graphs : 
“ The views of one* of my colleagues are different on some of the problems of geology, 
as I have just learned by seeing his published works. Time will determine who is right; 
and the author, if wrong, will without hesitation yield the point. Prof. Emmons has 
discussed the long vexed question of the age of the Taconic rocks (the peculiar slates, 
limestones, etc. along the eastern line of New-York from Lake Champlain to the High¬ 
lands) . He has the advantage of having lived on and among them, and of exploring 
them with much minuteness during many years; and probably every geologist, from 
examining them where he has, would arrive at the same conclusion as to their age. He 
admits that they are not found at any locality resting on the primary, but that the Potsdam 
sandstone is the lowest known rock resting upon that formation. 
u Prof. Hitchcock, the Geologist of Massachusetts, has also entered into a discussion of 
the age of the Taconic rocks, as they occupy some space in the western part of Massa¬ 
chusetts. His observations, and those of Prof. Dana, have long since drawn the attention 
of geologists to these rocks. Prof. H. views these rocks as metamorphic, a conclusion 
entirely opposite to that of Prof. Emmons ; but he could find no data from which to infer 
their age or place in the geological series. Both these gentlemen, Profs. H. D. and W. B. 
Rogers, and various other geologists, have come to the conclusion that these rocks, and 
in fact most of those from the Hoosic mountain range to the Hudson, have been wrinkled 
up and folded over, all in one direction, so as to give the same direction of dip; and I 
concur with them in this opinion. My own observations on these rocks, and those of 
the Hudson valley, conducted with much care through their whole extent in New-York, 
By personal inquiry, Mr. Mather informed the author that he was the colleague referred to. 
