Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1881-12-01

known" in answer to question,
(which is the hardest work. have
tramped all day through the toughest
Adirondack country, wet and hungry.
for one trout. and have blasted and
hammered at ledge. torn down stone
fences and set them up all day and only
realized one lower jaw for my pains.
but as it was new species 1 felt paid.
Doubtless the latter involves the most
manual labor, and l have frequently
tramped ten or twelve miles with load
of rocks on my back. Had l been
forced to do it. should have consid-
cred myself q martyr. Stone fences in
the right localities are good places to
look for specimens. and have been as
saulted. blackguarGed and even sued
by farmers for hauling them down. but
it is one of the excitements of the
sport"
"All the localities YOU mentioned
were once under water"
"Yes, the Devonian Sea covered the
spot, and the aspect of tle continent
was materially different from what it is
now. The temperature, even, was de.
cidedly different. At this time the
Rocky Mountains and Appalachians
we're only islands, and the Green
Mountains. though above water. were
much lower than at present"
"How long ago was this?"
swell. the time Is given as $1,000
600 years-lnere guess work; but we
can easily form ideas OF the immensely
of time by looking around us, and we
see that the surface of the earth has not
changed perceptibly as far back as we
have information. say four or five
thousand years. Now. during the De-
vonian age. strata were deposited from
five hundred to fifteen thousand feet in
thickness. You can draw your own
conclusions as to whether this deposit
ton could take place in hundred
thousand or a hundred million years.
The earliest fossil fishes and more than
two thousand have been discovered in
all-are found in the Schoharie grit,
and were ganoids-remarkable creatures
with bony plates or scales, a regular
armOr. They were related to our gar
fishes and sturgeon of to-day, and,
stranger yet. to the reptiles. They
could move their heads up and down, u
decidedly unfishlike arrangement. Some
had plates. like green turtle. and pad
dies instead of fins. with which they
moved along. They all had curious
vertebrated tails. that is, the vertebra
extended into the tail, either the center
or the upper lobe. giving them re-
markable appearance. One of these.
the megalichthys, coming from the
coal age, had such enormous teeth that
they would be taken for those of croc-
odile, some of them being seven inches
long. The head Of this monster was
protected by immense plates. The as
terolepis was twenty to thirty-five feet
loug. and was 4 savage creature. One
of the largest was called the din
ichthys. A single massive plate occu-
pied the center of the back. and was
more than two feet in length and
breadth. The head was three feet in
diameter, and the mandibles were two
feet in length, by six inches in depth,
and solid bone. One you might call the
buckler- fish had head formed like
shield. and was prolonged backward into
two long points, so the animal resembled
a gigantic blunt arrowhead. Its eyes
were very small on the tOpof the head,
while the small body was covered with
rhOmboidal scales. Another. called
the rhizodus, was carnivorous fish OF
great size. They are found in the
lime stones and mari that underlie the
coal formation, and with them are
found ferns, land plants, freshwater
shells and crabs. showing that the local.
ity where they were discovered was an
estuary. So perfectly are some Of
these fishes preserved that every bone.
and even the softer parts. can be ex-
amined. especially in the macropoma,
a magnificent fish resembling our carp.
In nearly all examined the air bladder,
or body that took its place. is found.
and is always torn. 1t evidently enabled
the fish to regulate its buoyancy, so
that it could move with equal facility in