James D. Dana entered the field of the Taconic area in 1871 and demonstrated that the system also abounds in Ordovician fossiliferous formations. Then came the far-reaching work of Charles D. Walcott, beginning in 1886, which showed that all through eastern New York and into northern Vermont the Hudson River group and the Taconic system abound not only in Ordovician but also in Cambrian fossils. Finally in 1888 Dana presented a Brief History of Taconic Ideas, and laid away the system with these words (=36=, 27): “It is almost fifty years since the Taconic system made its abrupt entrance into geological science. Notwithstanding some good points, it has been through its greater errors, long a hindrance to progress here and abroad ... But, whether the evil or the good has predominated, we may now hope, while heartily honoring Professor Emmons for his earnest geological labors and his discoveries, that Taconic ideas may be allowed to be and remain part of the past.” As an epitaph Dana placed over the remains of the Taconic system the black-faced numerals =1841–1888=. That the remains of the system, however, and the term Taconic are still alive and demanding a rehearing is apparent to all interested stratigraphers. This is not the place to set the matter right, and all that can be done at the present time is to point out what are the things that still keep alive Emmons’s system. In the typical area of the Taconic system, i. e., in Rensselaer County, Emmons in 1844–1846 produced the fossils _Atops trilineatus_ and _Elliptocephala asaphoides_. S. W. Ford, as stated above, later produced from the same general area many other fossils that he demonstrated to be older than the Potsdam sandstone. To this time he gave the name of Lower Potsdam, thus proving on paleontological grounds that at least some part of the Taconic system is older than the New York system, and therefore older than the Hudson River group of Ordovician age.