In Silurian and Devonian Epochs 129 



two passages, he says {86:24): "The bone-beds of the 

 Corniferous Limestone, in which the remains of millions 

 of marine fishes (ital. author) of Middle Devonian age 

 are strewed over the old sea-bottom, contain numerous stud- 

 like, often highly ornamented dermal tubercles, and occa- 

 sionally fragments of the pectoral spines of Machaeracan- 

 thus, but almost no teeth of cartilaginous fishes." And 

 on the succeeding page he says: "The derivation of this 

 fish-fauna is not known to us. The Devonian Cephalaspidi- 

 ans, Cephalaspis, Acanthaspis and Acantholepis have afilini- 

 ties with Pteraspis and Scaphaspis of the Upper Silurian and 

 are perhaps their descendants, but the origin of the most 

 striking and characteristic elements in this fauna — the 

 gigantic Dinichthidae and the scaled and plated Ganoids, 

 Onychodus, Macropetalichthys and Asterosteus, as also the 

 great pterichthid Aspidichthys and the Elasmobranchs 

 Rhynchodus and M achaeracanthus , among the largest and 

 most highly specialized of all fishes — will perhaps always 

 remain a mystery. Most of these were inhabitants of the 

 Corniferous sea, and came in from the great oceanic basins 

 with the flood which, at a certain time, inundated parts of 

 the North American continent and deposited upon them 

 the sediments which we call the Lower and Middle Devo- 

 nian rocks." 



Then on page 30 he suggests that the entire bone-bed 

 "accumulated in some nook or bay, perhaps bordering a 

 coral reef where large and small fishes congregated age 

 after age, until their Kjokkenmoddings formed a sheet 

 some inches in thickness over all the sea-bottom." Now the 

 remarkable feature is that neither Newberry nor subse- 

 quently Orton in "Palaeontology of Ohio" describe a single 

 coral or other marine organism from the bed. Claypole 

 again (^'7:313) in his paper on "The Devonian Era in 

 the Ohio Basin" says: "Apparently the fishes of the Cornif- 

 erous were tenants of the open sea and the clear water, 

 where dwelt the coral polyps, and where the deposits were 

 limestone." In the entire absence of traces of the corals, 

 in the presence toward its base (p. 316) of "masses of 

 silicified wood (Dadoxylon newberryi Dawson)," and in 

 the occurrence of similar fishes in Europe alongside remains 



