The Washington times., 1936-07-30
NOW
HOW to Enjoy
a Stubbed Toe
SEA TREASURES
BY HELEN ESSARY


and suddenly feel your bare, bare
foot being pierced by a sharp bone
don't cry out with pain.
Don't swear. Don't even NUT
ter.
Your cue is to cheer. Because,
my dear, there is chance that the
CORY wound in your epidermis
pedis has been caused by a frag-
ment of a bone of a Kentridon
Pernix, a Miocene Porpoise.
Life and nature are generally
surprising. Especially in summer
by the Bay Shore.
Though expecting to m e t
strange people and experiences on
a vacation, you hardly hope to run
into a piece of a $4,000, 000-year-old
porpoiSe over the weekend. Ger
tainly not within your own hunt
ing ground, remote from the cases
Of a museum.
But in "the Calvert area" you
may stumble on most anything
antedeluvian - (See pamphlet by
Remington Kellogg "On the Oc-
currence Of Remains Of Fossil
PROPOSES Of the Genus Eurhinodel.
phis in North America").
During that relaxed picnicking
interval between midday fried
chicken and the late afternoon
hot dog, you may make the
acquaintance of the complete jaw
bone of a long-dead whale, prob
ably mistaking your treasure for
q weather-beaten log of wood.
Unless by chance you have the
wisdom of DR.. w. F. FoShag,
curator of mineralogy of the
Smithsonian Institute. 1t was DR..
FoShag who brought to the Natural
History Museum last week the jaw
of snub-nosed porpoise, the most
recent addition to the Fossils Of
the Calvert Miocene."
If you are the kind of parent
who takes the little children with
you when you go down the bay.
you have surely been presented
with a tooth of a 10000, 000-year-
old shark. You stupidity thought
the tooth was a sea shell. You
didn't recognize that here was the
concrete evidence of an age known
scientifically as THE Miocene."
THE Miocene" was the Nam,
malian Golden Age. Mammals
were engaged at the time in con-
Quering every haunt of life. Liv,
ing creatures were penetrating
everywhere like the overlooking
waters of a great river in flood.
I went to the Natural History
Museum yesterday to see DR..
Charles w. Gilmore, vertebrate
paleontologist, and ask about the
discoveries along the Calvert
Cliffs.
found DR.. Gilmore in a labora-
tory, adding up odds and ends of
animals that romped over the
earth millions of years ago.
In who's Who" DR.. Gilmore
has a reputation a yard long.
He's the dinosaur expert of the
Smithsonian. Those great hideous
creatures that look as if they
never exiSted-you find them in
the section of the Museum de-
voted to the prehistoric animals
are DR.. Gilmore'S pets.
But DR.. Gilmore is gentle and
modest. He also has twinkle in
his eye. And he doesn't regard
himself with awe.
He said, smiling:
you can't take yourself hard,
not when you spend your days
looking back on the World as it
was millions of years ago. You
find yourself believing that the
individual isn't important. Al
least not in the eyes of science.
Most present achievement, no
matter how amazing it appears,
is soon lost in the ages. Nothing
much happens, even in a gener-
alton"
"H0w do those bits Of prehis-
tOric whales and sharks happen
to be so plentiful along the Cal
vert CliffS?" / asked DIR. Gill
more, bringing him determinedly
down to the present.
He paused in his admiration of
a fossil bone, shipped in from "the
field" and encased in the rock in
which it was found; then patiently
tried to answer my question.
Since 1867, it seems, fossil re-
mains have been found frequently
in the Calvert formation. This Sec
ton extends along the western
shore Of the bay to the Patuxent
river, distance Of about IS miles.
The Cliffs are mainly of clay.
The presence of the porpoiSe,
bird and mollusk remains therein
are thus explained:
During various periods of geolog-
ical history the surface of the
earth has been at different levels.
The Calvert Cliffs were once be-
low sea level. AS the Miocene Sea
advanced little by little on the
sinking surface of the mainland
the waves deposited bones of ami
mails, soil and slime. This was the
beginning Of the Calvert Forma-
ton.
After the Miocene Sea receded,
what are now the Calvert Cliffs
rose above the level of the ocean.