Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/535

Rh impossible. No one who has tasted such waters, or has attempted to ford one of the modern alkaline lakes which are often met with on the present surface of the same deposits, will doubt the efficiency of this cause, or the easy entombment of the higher vertebrates that ventured within their borders. In the Pliocene lake-basins of the same region, remains of fishes were not uncommon, and in some of them are very numerous. These are all of modern types, and most of them are Cyprinoids, related to the modern carp. The Post-pliocene fishes are essentially those of to-day.

In this brief synopsis of the past ichthyic life of this continent, I have mentioned only a few of the more important facts, but sufficient, I trust, to give an outline of its history. Of this history, it is evident that we have as yet only a very imperfect record. We have seen that the earliest remains of fishes known in this country are from the lower Devonian; but these old fishes show so great a diversity of form and structure as to clearly indicate for the class a much earlier origin. In this connection, we must bear in mind that the two lowest groups of existing fishes are entirely without osseous skeletons, and hence, however abundant, would leave no permanent record in the deposits in which remains of fishes are usually preserved. It is safe to infer, from the knowledge which we now possess of the simpler forms of life, that even more of the early fishes were cartilaginous, or so destitute of hard parts as to leave no enduring traces of their existence. Without positive knowledge of such forms, and considering the great diversity of those we have, it would seem a hopeless task at present to attempt to trace successfully the genealogy of this class. One line, however, appears to be direct, from our modern gar-pike, through the lower Eocene Lepidosteus to the Lepidotus of the Cretaceous, and perhaps on through the Triassic Ischypterus and Carboniferous Palæoniscus; but beyond this, in our rocks, it is lost. The living Chimæra of our Pacific coast has nearly allied forms in the Tertiary and Cretaceous, more distant relatives in the Carboniferous, and a possible ancestor in the Devonian Rhynchodus. Our sharks likewise can be traced with some certainty back to the Palæozoic; and even the Lepidosiren, of South America, although its immediate predecessors are unknown, has some peculiar characters which strongly point to a Devonian ancestry. These suggestive lines indicate a rich field for investigation in the ancient life-history of American fishes.

The Amphibians, the next higher class of vertebrates, are so closely related to the fishes in structure that some peculiar forms of the latter have been considered by anatomists as belonging to this group. The earliest evidence of Amphibian existence, on this continent, is in the Sub-Carboniferous, where footprints have been found which were probably made by Labyrinthodonts, the most ancient representatives of the class. Well-preserved remains are abundant