^^^^ THE NEW EVOLUTION "^f 



Sometimes a minute free floating sea plant, one of the 

 so-called peridinians (usually or perhaps always 

 Goniaulax), becomes enormously abundant and then 

 suddenly dies away. The billions of dead plants foul 

 the water and give off a sulphurous odor like that 

 from a volcano. The fish in the affected area are 

 killed and go to the bottom or wash up on the shores 

 in enormous numbers. 



Such calamities are occasional on the coast of south- 

 ern California and of southern Japan, in southwestern 

 Africa and elsewhere. On the coast of Venezuela 

 between Margarita island and the mainland, where I 

 have witnessed this phenomenon, it takes place 

 every summer. 



If the fishes poisoned by the fouling of the sea 

 resulting from the death of the peridinians should be 

 covered up and buried and the sea bottom should 

 later turn to rock that rock would contain a continu- 

 ous thin layer of fish. 



Remarkably perfect sea reptiles showing the out- 

 lines of the body which have been found in England 

 and in southern Germany represent carcasses stranded 

 on fine mud and subsequently buried. 



When the deposits laid down in the sea are, through 

 the elevation of the land, brought above sea level, then 

 the fossils can be seen. Often in the intervening time 

 the originally loose muds or sands or gravels have 

 been changed to solid rock, and the fossils in this rock 

 are in their composition wholly different from what 

 they were originally. 



Under very exceptional conditions it may happen 



[96] 



