30 PALEOZOIC FISHES OF NORTH AMERICA. 
of the Devonian sea than we are able to get from isolated specimens how- 
ever perfect; they therefore deserve a few words of description. 
The first of these bone beds was discovered by Mr. J. H. Klippart, in 
the upper part of the Corniferous limestone, a few miles north of Columbus, 
Ohio. The stratum in question is only from two to four inches in thickness, 
but it extends over an area of many square miles. It is almost entirely 
composed of fragments of plates, teeth, spines, and dermal tubercles of 
Ganoids, Placoderms, and Elasmobranch fishes. Unfortunately most of them 
are so much broken and worn, that they are difficult and disappointing objects 
of study; but the deposit is one of peculiar interest from its mode of forma- 
tion and from the comprehensive view it gives of the Devonian fish fauna. 
Here we have the assemblage of millions on millions of generally im- 
perfect but mostly recognizable organs or fragments of the bony structure 
of the forms of fish life most characteristic of the Devonian age. There are 
many entire teeth and dermal tubercles, but these are always detached and 
scattered. Most of the fragments are worn and rounded, and have evidently 
been subjected to some sort of triturating agency. They have the aspect 
of having been beach-worn, but the mass is almost entirely organic, and it 
is difficult to understand how it could have accumulated along a shore line 
without some intermingling of sand or pebbles. It forms a thin layer in a 
thick sheet of organic sediment, which must have been deposited in com- 
paratively deep water, for no land wash of any kind is associated with it. 
It has seemed to me not impossible that this fish bed was for the most part 
made up of excrementitious matter, and that it represents the hard and indi- 
gestible parts of fishes which have served as food for other and larger kinds. 
On this supposition the fragmentary and worn appearance of the bones 
would be attributable to the crushing, maceration, and partial digestion 
which they have suffered. If this is the true history of the deposit, it accu- 
mulated in some nook or bay, perhaps bordering a coral reef, where large 
and small fishes congregated age after age until their “ kjokkenméddings” 
formed a sheet some inches in thickness over all the sea bottom. By what- 
ever process accumulated, this mass of fish remains constitutes a most 
remarkable deposit, and one not less interesting as a geological formation 
than because of the many forms of ancient life it contains. 
