understanding how various species of mammals come to be polygamous. But polygamy stands on a totally different footing to communal marriage. The possession by each male of many wives would certainly be secured by communism; but this recommendation of the system would be far more than counterbalanced by the fact that each male has to undergo the trial of knowing other males, his rivals, to be just as well off in this respect, as he is himself. Judging from what we know of the habits and instincts of wild animals, no male mammal would or could endure this trial with patience; especially as the males are often armed "with special weapons for battling with their rivals," and as they are limited to a short breeding-season. Communal marriage implies that each male should acquiesce in the success of his rivals, in order that a similar license may be extended to himself, and he may be permitted to pursue his loves in peace. Each male, on the other hand, amongst the mammals, resists, so far as he is able, the successes of the other males; and we can not, therefore, suppose that communal marriage, in our sense of the term, ever occurs, or has occurred, amongst the quadrupeds. We are thus unable to trace in any mammal the commencement of those feelings which render communal marriages possible amongst men.

As regards the manner of action of sexual selection with mankind, there are only three points which may be noticed. In the first place, sexual selection is said by Mr. Darwin to have acted much more powerfully in very remote periods than at the present day. We cannot see that any adequate grounds exist for such an assertion. Sexual selection, so far as it acts at all, must be at least as powerful now as it ever was. Its action amongst the most civilized nations has doubtless become infinitely complex, but men select their wives, or wives select their husbands, just as much as they ever did, and if sexual selection has any action in modifying races, it cannot be less effective now than it used to be, simply because the grounds of the selection have been changed. In the second place, it is a fallacy, so far, at any rate, as civilized peoples are concerned, to suppose that the strongest men necessarily leave the largest number of children. On the contrary, the notorious fact is that it is amongst the weaker members of the community, and those both physically and morally below the standard, that the highest ratio of multiplication is found. Not only does a certain amount or kind of phy

sical degeneracy predispose to rapid multiplication; but the same classes of society in which the best examples of this may be found are just those in which early marriage is the rule, instead of the exception. The strongest classes of the community, therefore, certainly have no assured advantage over the weaker and poorer classes, as regards the number of descendants likely to be left by each. In the third place, Mr. Darwin believes that the characters of male animals have in the main been acquired by "the law of battle," in consequence of their having been compelled to fight for their wives. If such had been the case with man, however, the characters gained in this way must have been chiefly, if not exclusively, mental. For, we have already seen that the struggle between man and man, even in the savage state, turns upon skill, ingenuity, cunning, and patience, far more than upon mere brute strength; whilst man, alone of all the higher animals, has been endowed by nature with no special weapons either of offence or defence. In fact, on Mr. Darwin's hypothesis, he is supposed to have early lost the few natural weapons with which he commenced the battle of life; a supposition very inconsistent with the theory of sexual selection.

Finally, it only remains to add that the chief character of the human race which Mr. Darwin proposes to account for by the action of sexual selection, is the general hairlessness of his body. It is admitted that natural selection, formerly so confidently appealed to, cannot have metamorphosed man from a hairy into a hairless animal; but it is now supposed that this change may have been brought about by the constant selection by the males of a hairy race of men of females in whom the hairy covering became "small by degrees and beautifully less." Mr. Darwin thinks that there is "nothing surprising in a partial loss of hair having been esteemed as ornamental by the ape-like progenitors of man." We can only say that we cannot agree with him in feeling no surprise on this head; whilst we do not think that the general evidence bears out his views as to the origin of man's hairless skin.

ADDITIONAL NOTES ON THE TACONIC CONTROVERSY.

BY E. BILLINGS, F.G.S.

In the last number of this journal I stated that the error in regard to the age of the Taconic rocks, was corrected by the investigations of the Geological Survey of Canada. I now propose to advance some further evidence in support of that averment. The question was decided chiefly by our discoveries at Point Levis, in May, 1860.

A trilobite that had been collected in the Georgia slates, was sent to me by Col. Jewett, in April, 1859. I considered that its occurrence in that group of rocks, was very much in favour of the views of Dr. Emmons. It is to this that he refers in his letter, published in my former note, where he says, “I had for years past looked upon the subject with a kind of indifference, until you had expressed to Col. Jewett opinions favourable to the existence of the lower rocks I had contended for."

I did not publish my opinion, but when afterwards Prof. Hall described and figured three trilobites from the same locality, I sent his pamphlet to Barrande, and called his attention to them as a group of primordial fossils, in a formation which was by the principal geologists of America, considered to be of the age of the Hudson River group. I saw that the facts could only be explained in one of two ways-either Dr. Emmons was right, or the trilobites constituted a sort of a colony of primordial fossils, in the Lower Silurian. The following are some extracts from Barrande's letter in reply:

"MY DEAR SIR,

PARIS, 28th May, 1860.

"A short time ago I received your letter of the 25th April, and at the same time the three Decades with two pamphlets, equally important for me.

"You will see shortly, in the Bulletin my observations on the subject of Paradoxides Harlani, which I consider as identical with Paradoxides spinosus of Bohemia; that opinion dates back to 1851. Being then in London, at the British Museum, they presented to me for determination, a cast sent from the United States under the name of P. Harlani. After having examined it, I was convinced that this cast had been made from a Bohemian specimen, which had been sent

to the other side of the Atlantic. I therefore thought myself right in effacing the American name, and in substituting that of P. spinosus. A short time afterwards I experienced the same illusion at the School of Mines in Paris. You may perceive by this how evident it is that these two forms are identical.

"After this fact, I think with you, that the opinions of our American confreres might well be modified. Besides you are aware that my doctrine, often expressed, is that the local deposits of countries, distant from each other, do not necessarily correspond exactly, one to

one.

"Nothing is more remarkable than the apparition of the three Olenus of Vermont, described by J. Hall in the pamphlet which I owe to your kindness. I demand of you, before all, if the figures are of the natural size, because there is nothing said about it in the text. The dimensions figured, greatly exceed those of the congeneric species of the ancient continent. You have good reason certainly to consider the apparition of these three species, in the Hudson River group, as a fact analogous to that of my colonies.

"These three Olenus reproduce certainly the forms, which appear in Europe, only in the Primordial fauna. Consequently they would constitute by themselves, the phenomena, of the re-apparition of a genus heretofore considered as having become extinct with the primordial fauna. It would be a fact analogous to the Colonies, and I would be happy to be able to cite it in the work which I am preparing upon that subject, and which I hope to publish soon. But before placing that fact among those on which 1 found my doctrine, you will perceive that it is indispensable for me to obtain a perfect security of its reality.

"You will render me a great service, if you can send me the facts which I have asked you for. If the three Olenus of Georgia represent really a re-apparition of an extinct type, or a sort of a colony, that fact would be very apropos for me, since it will show that on the new continent the succession of organic beings has been subjected to anomalies, similar to those which I have discovered in our old Europe. But if by chance, by some local accident, hitherto not perceived, there has been an illusion, very conceivable, as to the age of the Georgia slates holding the Olenus, it would simply be in America a repetition of that which has taken place in England, in Spain, and in Germany, as I have already related to you.

J. BARRANDE."

The above is quite sufficient to prove, that I had recognized the trilobites to be primordial, before the pamphlet in which they were figured was sent to Barrande. Prof. Hall had referred them to Olenus, but I have been assured by several of the geologists who followed him, that he never intimated to them that the fossils indicated a horizon lower than that of the Hudson River

group. I was the first to point this out. I considered that the evidence afforded by these trilobites was strongly in favour of Dr. Emmons' views, but did not amount to a perfect demonstration. They might constitute a colony, or something analogous thereto. Had no other evidence of the antiquity of the Georgia slates ever been discovered, it is possible that their age might still be disputed.

About the middle of May, 1860, before I had received Barrande's letter above quoted, and in fact before it was written, the trilobites and other fossils in the limestone of Point Lévis were collected. This discovery at once changed the whole aspect of the question. Up to this time the three trilobites of the Georgia slates stood alone, but now a crowd of similar forms came to their assistance. As these new fossils were partly primordial, and in part Lower Silurian types, I assigned to them a position about the horizon of the Calciferous and Chazy formations. It was at first thought that those which occurred in a peculiar white limestone might constitute a group distinct from the others, and that they might represent some portion of a strictly primordial fauna. It was afterwards found that this group was connected with the others, and that the whole belonged to one series.

On the 12th of July, 1860, I wrote to Barrande, and gave him an account of our discovery. The following are some ex

tracts from his answer:

"MY DEAR SIR,

"PARIS, 19th August, 1860.

"Your letter of the 12th July last remained some days at Prague, where it awaited me. I have received it, and hasten to inform you, that I have read it with the most lively interest and the greatest satisfaction. The important discovery which you announce did not surprise me, upon the whole, since, as you have reminded me, I have always hoped for it. I recognize a coincidence, so to speak, providential, between that manifestation of the primordial fauna in the environs of Quebec and the moment when the question relative to the three Olenus of Vermont is about to arise.

• When Sir W. E. Logan first examined these rocks he thought they were older than the Trenton. In his "Preliminary Report" dated 6th December, 1842, he states "of the relative age of the contorted rocks at Point Lévis opposite Quebec, I have not any good evidence, though I am inclined to the opinion that they come out from below the flat limestone of the St. Lawrence." We now know that his first view was the correct one.