3IO Evolution and Distribution of Fishes 



and beneath the trap of the Palisades above Hoboken, and 

 it seems probable that the great mortality, which strewed 

 the bottom of the basin at times with dead fishes, was the 

 result of some phase of the volcanic action which poured 

 out the trap masses of the Palisades and Newark 

 mountains." 



He considered that these shales were for ages de- 

 posited in troughs that were occupied by fresh — or brakish 

 — water lakes or estuaries which represented the surface 

 drainage of the adjacent country. So Eastman writes: 

 "While there is nothing in the character of the fossil fishes 

 which would prove conclusively whether the deposits took 

 place in salt or brakish or freshwater, the physical charac- 

 ter of the deposits, and the fossils other than fishes found in 

 them, make it substantially certain that the deposits are 

 not marine. 



"No corals, echinoderms, or brachiopods have been 

 found in the Triassic in Connecticut, or in any other of the 

 Triassic basins of eastern North America. Molluscs are 

 very few, and most of those found are undoubtedly fresh- 

 water forms. A very few marine molluscs, it is claimed, 

 have been found in the Triassic of Pennsylvania. A few 

 Crustacea, probably freshwater or brakish water forms, 

 have been found in some of the southern Triassic basins, 

 though not in Connecticut. A few insect larvae have been 

 found. For the rest, the fossils of the formation consist 

 of land-plants, and tracks of reptiles and amphibians, with 

 a few skeletons of reptiles. Such an assemblage of fossils 

 makes it clear that the formation is not marine, though 

 the presence of a few marine shells (if those shells are right- 

 ly identified) indicate conditions in part estuarine." 



On p. 76 Newberry, in speaking of the possible feeding 

 habits of Dipluriis, adds to the above : "the only vegetable 

 remains found in the fish-beds of New Jersey and Connecti- 

 cut, are those of land-plants — fronds of cycads and twigs of 

 conifers^ — and it is hardly probable these could have 

 formed the subsistence of Diphtriis. Molluscs and crusta- 

 ceans are entirely absent, so unless he devoured the scaled 

 ganoids, of which the remains are so abundant, it is difficult 

 to imagine of what his food could have consisted." It 



