AGE OF FISHES. 211 



from some cause, have been suddenly destroyed and bur- 

 ied at the same time, for Hugh Miller states that there 

 are strata in Scotland where they lie as thickly as her- 

 rings do on the fishing-banks in the time of the fisher- 

 man's harvest. And often there is positive proof of their 

 having been suddenly killed and buried in their contorted 

 attitudes. Undoubtedly, in such cases, the fishes were 

 overwhelmed with the material in which they were en- 

 veloped by some great convulsion, and then they became 

 fossilized in the rock into which this material was con- 

 verted by solidification. 



304. United States at the End of this Age. I have 

 given you in 267 some idea of the beginning of the 

 continent of North America in the Azoic age, and in 

 276 some idea of the additions which were made in 

 the Silurian age. During the Devonian age additions 

 were made on the south and southwest, carrying out the 

 plan already begun, as indicated in Fig. 100. Agassiz 

 has stated what these additions were. He says that so 

 much was added that at the conclusion of the age there 

 were above the water within the United States "the 

 greater part of New England, the whole of New York, 

 a narrow strip along the north of Ohio, a great part of 

 Indiana and Illinois, and nearly the whole of Michigan 

 and Wisconsin." Besides this, from upheavals at the 

 close of this period, there were, in place of the Rocky 

 Mountains at the "West, and of the Appalachian chain, 

 which now stretches as a rocky wall from New England 

 to Alabama, detached islands and reefs amid shallow 

 waters. One of the upheavals that occurred at the con- 

 clusion of the Devonian age raised the high ground on 

 which the city of Cincinnati now stands. Of this hill 

 Agassiz says, " The granite did not break through, 

 though the force of the upheaval was such as to rend 

 asunder the Devonian deposits, for we find them lying 

 torn and broken about the base of the hill ; while the Si- 

 lurian beds, which should underlie them in their natural 



