Our planet, its past and future; or, Lectures on geology . long. Another fish found in the same beds, somewhat re-sembling the pterichthys, is the cephalaspis, or buckler-head, as its name signifies. Its head resembles a saddlers knife, as Owen vib-serves; and the animal was at first mistaken for atrilobite, some species of which it is somewliat like. The coccosieiis, or l)erry-bone, as its name means,was so called on account of the berry-like projectionsAJiich ornament its buckler-plates. This ornamentation?o much resen>bles that on the buckler-plates of somi-tortoises, that it led to the
Our planet, its past and future; or, Lectures on geology . long. Another fish found in the same beds, somewhat re-sembling the pterichthys, is the cephalaspis, or buckler-head, as its name signifies. Its head resembles a saddlers knife, as Owen vib-serves; and the animal was at first mistaken for atrilobite, some species of which it is somewliat like. The coccosieiis, or l)erry-bone, as its name means,was so called on account of the berry-like projectionsAJiich ornament its buckler-plates. This ornamentation?o much resen>bles that on the buckler-plates of somi-tortoises, that it led to the belief that tortoises existedin Devonian times. The jaws and teeth of this fish areparticularly interesting; the teeth being chiselled, as itt IM LECTURES ON GEOLOGY. Were, out ol the solid bone of the jaw, just as the teethof a saw are cut out of a plate of steel. The asferolcpis, or star-, was a bony-soaled fish,that soniotimes attained a len2;th of twentv feet; so that(he Devonian oceans were supplied with fishes of re-spectable size. Fi-. llolopcyutiius uohlUaimus. Another fish uf this age was the liolojitychias (wholefold). Fig. 10 represents one found in the old redsandstone, at Clashbinnie, Scotland. It lies on its back. The body (says Hugh ^liller) ** measures a foot acrossby two icet and a half in length, exclusive of the tail,which is wanting; but the armor in whicli it is casedmight have served a crocodile or alligator of five timesthe size. The jaws are armed with enormous teeth,and the scales are very large and deeply wrinldod. Returning to a consideration of America, we findabove the corniferous limestone the Hamilton group;a series of shales and limestones abounding with fossilremains of shells, coials, crinoids, trilobites, and occa-sionally of fishes and plants, and generally in an state of pixscrvation: for thoy were buried intenacious mud at the sea-bottom, which hardened into LECTURES ON 115 Bhalo; and tliis, when exposed t
Size: 2205px × 1134px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidourplanetits, bookyear1881
