Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-05-23

aside all comparisons and say that the
oceans marvel, considered strictly, looked
like no other extinct or living creature of
the ocean.
The iehthyosaurus simply was unique
in form and in everything else.
Our new investigators have accepted this
view and have made Tor 1t a distinct order
of reptflia, equal in Importance to those OF
the lizards, the crocodiles and the turtles
The DarwiniSt, to be sure, is not content
with this He is all the more DESTROYS now
to find a branching point where the individ-
ual form of the ichthyosaurians is Joined
to the great ancestral form of reptiles
Everything appears to point to the fact
that the oldest forms of these reptiles-if
they did develop from one ancient form
possessed a certain external similarity to
our living lizards, being land or fresh-wa-
ter forms with five-toed feet, showing no
tendency to become fiipper-like.
Such creatures are found in exceedingly
old formations, much older than the Juras-
sic stones that contain the tchthyosaurians.
It is believed that in these ancient forms
we are near to seeing a prtmeval reptile,
the prototype itself.
He Remains a Riddle.
But If that is So the ichthyosaurus must
have developed far away from those rep
titan ancestors and back into his weird
fish form, through the maddest riot Of
adaptation processes and through the most
involved Of evolutionary changes. We do
not know what these processes and steps
may have been.
The new monster appears suddenly in the
world like a meteor from the sky. and the
Oldest forms OF the Triassic period scarcely
show a few faint resemblances to a lizard
like archtype, and even those faint resem-
blances are doubtful
Here we have another of the big breaks
in our chains of facts. Two hundred ich-
thyaSaurians a year are dug out OF one
place in little Swabia, and yet. in the whole
big earth, we cannot find a single tiny
bone belonging to any preceding link form
that might teach US where the old monster
place is in the family tree of life.
They were such cases as this that formed
the favorite citations of the old supporters
81 the once popular theory that the epochs
of the worlds existence were sharply
bounded by so many tremendous catastro-
Plies, In each of which the entire living
world was stamped out completely to make
room for new creation. The ichthy
osaurus would be fine witness for this
theory if it had not been wrecked long ago.
We know now that there are no proofs of
such catastrophes. Certain animal life has
maintained itself in primeval form into to-
day; so 1t must have been catastrophe
proof If there were world catastrophes.
OF other. animals we possess the link
forms, such as that blended creature
archaeopteryx from Solenhoren whose
fossil cast is in the Berlin Museum, and
which links the lizard directly with the
bird.
Common sense tells us that there can
not fail to be many breaks in records going
backward millions of years. We can see
plainly that much must have been lost
forever. The earth holds fast to many of
her secrets and gives up the answer I'M
willingly or not at all.
The ichthyosaurus is such secret. He
is our. riddle. unanswered after forty
years Of Darwinism.