Evening star., 1901-04-20
PRIMEVAL AMIN NAILS
Creatures That Crawled About on
Earth Aeons Ago.
APPEARANCE OF The OLENELLUS
Our Earliest Ancestor of Which
Much is Known.
WHEN THE MAMMALS CAME
Copyright, 1901, by C. A. ]. Cole-)

Copyright, 1901. by C. A. J. Cole)
Written for The Evening Star by Prof Grenvilie
y. ]. Cole.
Mankind has ever been as hungry for
knowledge about it's past as it is and ever
will be about the possibilities of its future,
and there is an absorbing fascination in
the study of the mysterious fragments
which tell the story. Far back in that
period called the Cambrian, when Verte-
brate life began to exist on earth, there
awled OIenellus the trilobite. We see his
tracks on the rocks hundreds of thousands
of years old, and wonder what manner of
world it was in which he and his kind lived
and moved and had their being
We know from the records of the rocks
themselves that the sun shone and the
drying sand cracked upon the shore, that
the waves beat and left little rillmarks as
they shrank away, and that the rain fell,
dimpling the surface of the clay, in those
far-of Cambrian years, just they do
now in the modern world around us Noun
tainS rose above the waters, and rivers
flowing from them brought down their
burden of stones and mud to the mighty
store house of the sea. Even the volcanoes
which here and there broke through the
surface. poured forth the same types of
lava today, and We're no more catas
trophic in their action.
Yet in all the ocean not a fish yet swan;
1t is doubtful if an insect yet crawled or
hOyered among the moSses of the flower
less land. The earth was there, golden
with sunlight, flecked with sea-born cloud;
the peaks rose white above the snOw-line,
the ocean floor went down into chill mys-
teriOuS depths. and the lord of all this
magnificence, this realm prepared.
are prone to think. for mans delight, was
Olenellus. the trilObite. a creature occa-
sionally four inches wide and at most six
inches long.
A Slow Development.
Slowly the development moves from spe-
cies to species. Oleneus gives place to
Paradoxides, also a trbOlite, but much
larger creature attaining length of two
feet. Then in Silurian times we meet with
Stylonorus, far more generalized marine
creature probably allied to the scorpions
and actually five feet long The small but
self-assertive scorpion 4ad by this time
appeared upon the land, and has success
fully held it's own thenceforth to the pres
ent day. The fishes, however, first
true VertebrateS, though often with poorly
developed backbOnes, secured hold- at
the same time the globe, and happily
avoided the assaults of StylonorOus and his
friends. Cased in boxes of bOny armor.
clumsy. but serene, they prOspered and
propagated their kind: becoming more spe-
cialized and more distinctly fshlike
time went on In the Devonian period We
thus find genuine fishes dominating the
globe. attaining the superb length of
thirty feet.
In the next period. the carboniferous
among our antique coal forests, amphibia
of quaint types move; and then, in Per-
mian and Triassic times the reptiles arise,
and rapidly assert their sway. When we
write reptiles the word with eau
tion and respect These early reptiles We're
less reptilian- far more generalized than
any reptile of the present day. They held
in themselves the promise of many higher
types Of life Already there must have
been some reptiian forms moving genera
tion by generation, along a sure course to-
ward the mammals; others, again, imper-
fectly fOreshadOwed the exquisite Struct-
ure of the birds. There is no epoch more
absorbing to the zoolOgist. none more eX-
citing to. the scientific imagination than
this junction zone between ancient and
modern times.
Delightful Dinosaurs.
The reptiles emerged from it trimphantly
The group of the dinosaurs, or terrible
liZards,' in their wide variety of form soon
laid hold upon the land Some moved pom
derously among the forests, cropping the
treetops as they raised their heads and
often standing fairly erect on their enor-
nous hinder limbs. Others We're fiercely
carniVorouS; and we find some of the vege-
table feeders protected against them by an
almost grotesque armor of plates and
spineS. Smaller and more elegant dinosaurs
hoped about between the bushes. or per
haps from branch to branch of the dark
In full and UnSatisfied vitality, the rep
tiles entered on the seas in search of food;
and huge swimming lizards, their limbs
modified into paddles. played more alarm
ing part than any of our modern whales
Lastly. the reptiles seized upon the air
many forms flying like huge bats by means
of membrane stretched from one digit
of the fore foot TO the side The empire of
the reptiles thus became complete and un-
disputed.
Mammals Got n FOOfhOId
In this world, where might seemed domi-
nant. where one huge form was followed by
another, until reptiles from thirty to a hun
dred feet long trampled the river banks or
heaved their bulk across the plains the
mammals none the less secured their place
and warily and craftily held their own
What skill in their timorous little brains
what swiftness in their twinkling feet
saved them amid the horde of reptiles
forms one of natures lost tales of adyen-
ture- We know that some mammals es-
capped destruction but they We're small
types. humber than the opossums and the
kangaroos We may picture them as hiding
In holes and corners of the earth. AS long
as the reptilian empire lasted the mann