THE STORY OP THE DINICHTHYS. f] 



fishes, while others class it with the reptiles. This curi- 

 ous animal is the only living representative of what, at one 

 time, was a large and powerful class of creatures. 



" Mr. Hertzer, breaking into fragments the huge septa- 

 ria of the Huron shale, so abundant in Delaw^are County — 

 though one of the toughest and most intractable of the 

 stony formations — was rewarded hj' finding the fossil bones 

 of some creature to him then unknown. 



' ' Several of these bones were taken by him to the meeting 

 of the American Scientific Association at Buffalo in 1866. 

 There they were submitted to Professor Newberry, who 

 recognized them as belonging to huge Ganoid fishes, alto- 

 gether unknown to science. 



" Mr. Hertzer, with renewed interest in his investiga- 

 tions, returned home, and continued his search among the 

 concretions. 



" Witli most patient care and skill, the hundreds of frag- 

 ments which he found in the nuclei of these huge spheroids 

 were cemented each in its proper place. In one septarium 

 a head of Dinichthys, though somewhat dislocated, was 

 complete in all its parts. In another was a perfect mandi- 

 ble, while still another contained one of the teeth of the 

 upper jaw. 



"Though much broken, these specimens were carefully 

 fitted to each other and restored to full integrity by this 

 faithful student. 



" ' The bones contained in these concretions," says Prof. 

 Newberry," are those of gigantic fishes, larger, more pow- 

 erful, and more singular in their organization than any of 

 those immortalized by Hugh Miller. I have named the 

 most remarkable one Dinichth3'S Hertzeri, or Hertzer's 

 terrible fish. This name will not seem ill-chosen when I 

 say that the fish that now bears it had a head three feet 

 long by two feet broad and that his under jaws were more 

 than two feet in length and five nches deep. They are 



