The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-07-19

AS a matter of fact, the grim shark
folk were very, very old. Long be-
fore the times of the ichthyosaurians
they tumbled around in the ocean.
Perhaps the higher vertebrates once
emerged from their ranks when GER
tain sharklike animals achieved lungs
and so gave the first opportunity Tor
the development of the amphibian,
from that to the reptile, the bird, the
mammal. How that was in detail
is still hidden from us. At any rate,
the sharks did not all develop into
higher animals, but great family OF
them retained its characteristics and
swan merrily through all earthly
epochs into the Tertiary one. And
then, when the end of that epoch
came, it was as if a particularly hoI
vitality shot through the tough old
race.
Ancient Shark Monsters.
To-day, when that vitality has long
been decaying again, there still re-
mains a colossus of twelve yards in
length, the mammoth shark Carcha-
radon. The teeth of this living shark
attain lengths of from two to two
and one-quarter inches. But once
there lived Carcharadon sharks whose
teeth were almost six inches long and
five inches thick. What could have
withstood such assailants? Certainly
no ichthyosaurus that had only rem
nants of teeth or entirely tooth1ess
jaws.
But in addition to the sharke there
appeared with the beginning of Ter
tiary times, perhaps even in the last
part of the Cretaceous period. the
whale-like swimming mammals them
selves. 1t is worth considering If the
whales, appearing so significantly at
the time of the disappearance of the
ichthyosaurus, did not really destroy
it in the very early days of their own
existence.
Although we do not know any
thing about their ancestral tree, 1t Is
certain that the whales did not begin
with toothless forms like our Green
land whale. Their first representatives
appear to have possessed the terrible,
almost shark-like. teeth of certain
dolphins, that belong to the most dan
gerous creatures of the sea to-day.
Our killer whale, or Orca, although
generally only six yards long, sue
ceeds with his ferocity and keen teeth
in overcoming the Greenland whale,
twenty yards long, which has abso-
lutely no enemies beside him except
man. Such orcas. as large once as the
| Greenland whale is now must have
been able to slay both Carcharadon
| shark and ichthyosaurus. Added to
their size and strength was the mann
NAL brain that gave its possessor a
further vast advantage over the weak
organ of fish and reptile.
That the sea peopled with these
giant sharks and monster dolphlns
was an uncanny home for all unar-
mored things at that time is proved
by certain small. but instructive, cir
cumstances.
Besides the ichthyosaurus a whole
| horde of swimming reptiles had be-
gun to venture into the open ocean
| in Triassic and Jurassic periods. Fish
| ing busily with his long neck, there
| swan the plesiosaurus a funny ami
NAL of which it has been said graph
| cally that it resembled a turtle that
suddenly had acquired the neck of a
swan.
But already in the chalk period we
| find these plesiosaurs retiring more
and more into the months of the great
ocean rivers.
They were fleeing from something.
Imagine thin swan-neck in the
jaws of giant shark. 1t would snap
| off like straw. These long-necks, then,
first found good reason for flight. 1t
didn't help them, however. They dis
| appeared with the ichthyosaurus.
Then there was the paw" saurian
These paw beasts scientifically
named teleosaurians were crocodiles,
swimming cheerfully in the open
ocean in those days.
And for these crocodiles, too, the
sea had become haunted in the Creta-
| ceous period. They, too, crowded to
the river mounts and appeared more
| and more in fresh waters.
They succeeded in their struggle, so
that they remain to this day. The rea-
son is plain. They were not paw
beasts" for nothing. Never had they
so far adapted themselves to the life
in the ocean that they had changed
their regular toed paws for flippers
or fms.
So they could escape to the land.
They We're able to crawl over sand
bars and swamps until they reached
water again.
The Holy TeIeosaur.
And thus they were permitted to
| last through all the changes of things
till into those wondrous days of man
| when in Egypt and India humanitys
| blind cropping for supernatural mys-
| teries made those ancient comrades of
| 1chthyosaurus and teleosaurus holy"
All these pictures form one chain.
The ichthyosaurus had made him
| self Comfortable" In many places
at least, he had permitted his weapons
to rust and degenerate. Then, sudden
ly. the ocean teemed with new, fierce
| eANNSl IL Wa 100 late LOT a re-
| adaptation to the land; too late even
for acquiring fresh water habits.
The very achievement of the ichthy-
osaurus, the magnificent f1n-apparatus
that had made it so mighty through
ages, became the great obstacle to its
continued existence. So came the end
| in the great drama.
The lion" of the Jurassic sea van
ished like fat, stupid dodo bird, con-
| Quered at last by those same laws of
natural development that had made
| him so great.
If human eyes could have seen it
they would have beheld the turning
| point of two periods Shark and
whale, still with us to-day, began their
lordship of the ocean. The crocodile
went into the rivers and passed into
| the heart of the warm parts of the
earth. But ichthyosaurus and plesio-
saurus passed as unfit"
End of the Pilgrimage.
In peaceful little corners of mu-