FORNEY, JOHN W. 



FOSSIL BIRDS. 



303 



extended a cordial support to Mr. Buchanan's 

 Administration up to the time of the adoption 

 of the Lecompton Constitution, and the effort 

 to secure the admission of Kansas into the 

 Union under it. Mr. Forney resolutely op- 

 posed that measure, which caused a disruption 

 of the friendly relations which had previously 

 existed between the President and himself. 

 The result of the struggle now forms a part of 

 the political history of the period. Few men 

 in the country contributed more than Mr. 

 Forney to strengthen the Republican party, 

 and to prepare it for the contest of 1860. In 

 December, 1859, he was for the second time 

 elected Clerk of the House of Representa- 

 tives, and soon after started a Sunday paper 

 in Washington called the " Sunday Morning 

 Chronicle." This venture was successful, and 

 was published as a daily. 



In 1861 he was elected Secretary of the Unit- 

 ed States Senate. Abraham Lincoln, Charles 

 Sumner, and Schuyler Colfax were his warm 

 supporters. For six years he discharged the 

 duties of that position with distinction. He 

 was one of the most fervent and influential 

 supporters of the Administration. On the death 

 of Lincoln, Mr. Forney supported Andrew 

 Johnson for a short time, but, when the " Press " 

 declared editorially against him, Mr. Forney 

 was one of the foremost in the struggle which 

 resulted in his impeachment. 



In March, 1871, Mr. Forney became Collect- 

 or of the Port of Philadelphia, having somo 

 time before resigned the secretaryship of the 

 Senate. During the one year he held the 

 office he earned the gratitude of many mer- 

 chants by converting from a dead letter into a 

 living reality the system of direct transporta- 

 tion of imports in bond without appraisement 

 and examination at the port of original entry. 

 This achievement, it has been claimed, laid the 

 foundation for the rapid increase in foreign 

 trade which has marked the history of Phila- 

 delphia during the last few years. As one of 

 the chief promoters of the Centennial Exposi- 

 tion, he visited Europe as a commissioner, and 

 was instrumental in bringing about its success. 

 He advocated the opening of the permanent 

 exhibition every day of the week, and con- 

 tended for Sunday cars and universal suffrage. 

 On his return from Europe, Mr. Forney sold 

 the "Press" for $180,000. In his editorial 

 farewell to his staff he said : " The ' Press ' 

 was the outgrowth of my best impulses. It 

 was twenty years old on the 1st of August, 

 1877. I have done my best to make it a good, 

 honest newspaper. It has lived through many 

 tempests and changes. It has received and 

 returned many blows. Its opinions have been 

 its convictions. It has often given offense in 

 the championship of a cause or a principle. 

 But I can say for myself that in all this long 

 course of time I have never deliberately 

 wounded or injured a human being, even in 

 the fiercest struggles of political or sectional 

 difference; and I hope I may be permitted to 



add that in more than fourteen years of offi- 

 cial responsibility, with millions of public 

 money to hold and disburse, not a dollar has 

 been misapplied or devoted to my personal use. 

 I recur to these recollections with pride, now 

 that my connection is about to close with the 

 newspaper which I founded. My experience 

 with the ' Press ' has been one of uninterrupted 

 satisfaction. I have never been truly happy 

 away from my editorial desk. Office and 

 honors have all been nothing to the substantial 

 pleasures of my journalistic work." Of late 

 years he devoted much time and attention to 

 his newspaper, the "Progress," and confident- 

 ly anticipated a great success in the enter- 

 prise. 



FOSSIL BIRDS. The first discovery of 

 any trace of a fossil bird of an earlier geolog- 

 ical period, was the observation of the impres- 

 sion of a feather in a slate-rock at Solenhofen. 

 It was described by H. von Meyer in 1861, 

 under the specific name lithographies, but sub- 

 sequently received the name Archceopteryx ma- 

 crura. An imperfect specimen of the same 

 species was described by Owen, and a complete 

 fossil, discovered in 1875, by Carl Vogt. This 

 was of the size of a pigeon. The small head, 

 of nearly flat, pyramidal form, was of the true 

 reptilian type in the configuration of its bones. 

 The neck, the thorax, the ribs, the shoulder- 

 girdle, the fore-limb, and the tail were all 

 formed like those of reptiles. In the upper 

 jaw two small, sharp, conical teeth were dis- 

 cerned. The remiges of the wings were fixed 

 to the ulnar edge of the arm and to the hand, 

 and were covered for half their length with 

 down. The hind-foot was that of a bird. 

 Birds' feathers covered the tibia for its whole 

 length. The main part of the body was naked. 

 Structurally the Archceopteryx macrura was 

 more closely allied to reptiles than to birds, 

 but with wings, feathers, and birds' feet it 

 possessed the most marked avian character- 

 istics, and can therefore be classed neither 

 among the reptiles nor the birds. Professor 

 Huxley proposes the name Sauropsids for a sin- 

 gle great section of vertebrates, including both 

 reptiles and birds. 



The two specimens of the genus Archceo- 

 pteryx found in Europe were imbedded in Ju- 

 rassic strata. Their structural features as well 

 as their stratigraphical position mark them as 

 belonging to an earlier age than the fossil birds 

 afterward found in the cretaceous deposits of 

 the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, 

 which are described below. In the cretaceous 

 formations of England a few specimens of avian 

 fossils have been found, but only fragments of 

 bones, which afford no nearer indications of 

 the forms which they represent than that they 

 are the bones of birds. 



Not long after the first transitional form, 

 linking these two great divisions of vertebrates, 

 was discovered in Europe, an entire series of 

 toothed birds and flying reptiles was brought 

 to light in the uninhabited West of the United 



