Iron County register., 1900-05-24
TALK ABOUT CRABS.
They Have Longer Pedigree Than
Any Other Creature.
Once They Used to Eat Everything
That Came Within Reach of
Their Claws, Now They Are
Hunted to BE Eaten.
Especial Washington letter.
TITH April goes the oys
" ter" is one of the time

(luTITH April goes the oys-
w ter" is one of the time
honored sayings of the
people of this section. The belief pre-
walls that ..only in those months in
which the letter r. is found should
oysters be eaten.'' Consequently the
oyster season every year begins with
September and ends with April. How
ever, at the seaside resorts oysters are
served at the hotels during the summer
months, but they are taken directly
from the salt water to the table.
With the departure of the oysters we
are accustomed to having crabs and
CLANS. Little neck CLAIMS are at the
top of the bill of fare in all first-class
hotels. We have clam chowder, and
clam broth, and clam patties, hashed
CLAIMS and stewed CLAIMS, and clans in
all styles. To most people they are
palatable, and also almost indigestible;
that is, to most people in cities. But
by the dwellers along the seashore,
who take great deal of physical ex-
ercise, they are regarded as an almost
indispensable article of summer diet,
and nobody complains that they are in
digestible.
But all of our people eat crabs, the
soft shell variety being exceptionally
popular. They furnish food to suit the
palate of the most fastidious of epi-
cures, and they are so delicate that
digestion is a part of the pleasure of
their consumption. They are usually
served broiled, on toast. The hard
shell crabs are usually boiled, picked,
minced and served as deviled crabs.
The crabs caught and utilized to-day
are comparatively small, very few of
them being more than six inches in
length. If you get one foot long it
is giant. And yet, in comparatively
modern times, about 20,000,000 years
ago, they used to attain great size. In
those days frogs used to be six feet
long, bigger than most men, and they
thought nothing Of hopping two or
three blocks at single leap.
Calcareous mud covered the entire
continent of North America, once upon
a time; say about 20,000,O00 years ago.
This mud was at the bottom of the
sea, and when the mountain ranges
of the east and west were vo1canical1y
upheaved the muddy sea bottom be-
came dry land. There is an average of
$4,000 feet of thickness of the sea bot
tom deposits on this continent. The
lowest and oldest layer was the cal
careous mud, in which certain animals
| were embedded as the hardening proc
ess went on. Consequently the scien-
fists of to-day find those animals her
metically sealed in the rocky layer
which was once muddy sea bottom.
In the Smithsonian institution there
are many specimens of these ancestors
of the crabs and Holsters of to-day.
They have turned to stone, with the
mud, but they have. been perfectly pre-
served, even to the facets of their eyes.
The professors who study these mat
tiers say that with just a little bit of
calculation they can tell how old these
specimens are and they talk of hun
| dred thousand centuries just as moth
ers tall; of the ages of their babies.
They say that the very learned Bish-
op Pcntoppidan was the first to de-
| scribe the crab as ga red fish which
walks backwards" when, as a matter