Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/532

514 I shall, therefore, pass rapidly over the lower groups, and speak more particularly of the higher vertebrates, which have an especial interest for us all, in so far as they approach man in structure, and thus indicate his probable origin. These higher vertebrates, moreover, are most important witnesses of the past, since their superior organization made them ready victims to slight climatic changes, which would otherwise have remained unrecorded.

In considering the ancient life of America, it is important to bear in mind that I can only offer you a brief record of a few of the countless forms that once occupied this continent. The review I can bring before you will not be like that of a great army, when regiment after regiment with full ranks moves by in orderly succession, until the entire host has passed. My review must be more like the roll-call after a battle, when only a few scarred and crippled veterans remain to answer to their names. Or, rather, it must resemble an array of relics, dug from the field of some old Trojan combat, long after the contest, when no survivor remains to tell the tale of the strife. From such an ancient battle-field, a Schliemann might unearth together the bronze shield, lance-head, and gilded helmet, of a prehistoric leader, and learn from them with certainty his race and rank. Perhaps the skull might still retain the barbaric stone weapon by which his northern foe had slain him. Near by, the explorer might bring to light the commingled coat-of-mail and trappings of a horse and rider, so strangely different from the equipment of the chief as to suggest a foreign ally. From these, and from the more common implements of war that fill the soil, the antiquary could determine, by patient study, what nations fought, and perhaps when and why.

By this same method of research the more ancient strata of the earth have been explored, and in our Western wilds veritable battlefields, strewed with the fossil skeletons of the slain, and guarded faithfully by savage superstition, have been despoiled, yielding to science treasures more rare than bronze or gold. Without such spoils, from many fields, I could not have chosen the present theme for my address to-night.

According to present knowledge, no vertebrate life is known to have existed on this continent in the Archæan, Cambrian, or Silurian period; yet during this time more than half of the thickness of American stratified rocks was deposited. It by no means follows that vertebrate animals of some kind did not exist here in those remote ages. Fishes are known from the Upper Silurian of Europe, and there is every probability that they will yet be discovered in our strata of the same age, if not at a still lower horizon.

In the shore-deposits of the early Devonian sea, known as the Schoharie Grit, characteristic remains of fishes were preserved, and in the deeper sea that followed, in which the Corniferous limestone was