40 MONOGRAPH OF DUEA DEN. 



CHAPTER III. 



HISTORY OP THE FOSSIL REMAINS. 



These comprise several distinct genera as well as species of 

 their different families. There is one belonging to the order of 

 Crustacea, and the rest are of the type of true fishes. Some of 

 the genera are entirely new to science, and some are new 

 species, whose generic forms have been found in other localities. 

 The remains of these fishes are so very abundant in the yellow 

 sandstone deposit of Dura Den, that a space of little more than 

 three square yards, as already noticed, when the writer was 

 present, yielded about a thousand fishes, most of them 

 perfect in their outline, the scales and fins quite entire, and 

 the forms of the creatures often starting freely out of their 

 hard stony matrix in their complete armature of scale, fin, 

 and bone. 



This peculiarity of entireness, and even of freshness in these 

 olden denizens of the waters, is so remarkable that, when first 

 exposed to view on the newly split-up rock, there is a life-like 

 glistering over the clear, shining, scaly forms, that one can 

 scarcely divest himself of the idea, instead of the innumerable 

 series of geologic terms to be counted, he is looking actually 

 upon the creations of yesterday, the relics of things that had 

 just ceased to breathe. " Here is a living one !" exclaimed a 

 workman, as he raised from the bed of the river a large flag- 

 stone on which were counted upwards of fifty fishes, one pre- 



