70 
FOSSILS OF THE TACONIC SLATE. 
Fig-. 10. 
The slate in which this specimen was found is rather coarse, and somewhat unlike the 
fine green taconic slate. It is not easily split into laminae, and hence it will be difficult to 
obtain the fossils it may possibly contain. It was found in Brunswick, Rensselaer county, 
by my friend Dr. Skilton of Troy. 
That the above fossil was the tube of an annelide, is of course suggested by the circum¬ 
stance that animals of this class are found in this rock : the idea is in keeping with this 
fact, and probably would not have been thought of independently. It is evident, however, 
that the annelides yet discovered in the Taconic rocks were naked, or did not construct 
tubes for their habitations ; so that it is not supposed that this relict was the tube of one of 
the species which I have figured and described. 
Should no farther discoveries in fossils be made, the Taconic system will present a very 
singular and remarkable condition: the animal kingdom being represented for along period 
by a single fragment, and that fragment belonging to one of its obscurest families, yet not 
the lowest in the scale of organization; but the most striking peculiarities consist in the 
remarkable forms here preserved, and the absence of all others which might serve to 
connect them with the known parts of the series. The JYereites and congeners standing, 
as it were by themselves, the sole representatives of one of the kingdoms of nature! Sub¬ 
sequently each geological period or era had many forms, typical of many divisions of the 
animal kingdom. But here, the entire absence of those forms which become so abundant 
at the very commencement of the succeeding system, is, to say the least, extremely in¬ 
teresting. However, so strange an anomaly is not to be admitted at once; although for 
many years these rocks have been diligently examined, without furnishing a single 
mollusk. 
I would here remark, that in consequence of the similarity of the taconic slates and 
some of the rocks of the Champlain group, fossils have been occasionally presented in 
their matrix, when it was doubtful to which system they belonged. In these cases I have 
invariably visited the spot, for the purpose of determining the exact position the fossil 
occupied ; and, in all cases where they were testacea, they were found in the New-York 
system. 
