232 GEOLOGY. 



pike of North America. Of this Hugh Miller says that 

 " it would almost seem as if it had been spared, amid 

 the wreck of genera and species, to serve us as a key by 

 which to unlock the marvels of the ichthyology of those 

 remote periods of geologic history appropriated to the 

 dynasty of the fish." This wonderful animal has an ar- 

 mor of bony scales, covered with hard enamel like that 

 of teeth, so that it would be difficult for any shot to take 

 effect on it; and as 'his teeth are very formidable, it has 

 been said of him by the fisherman that "he can hurt ev- 

 ery thing, and nothing can hurt him." It is very agile, 

 darting through the water even up the rapids of Niaga- 

 ra. It can bend its head freely in all directions, like a 

 serpent, which no other fish can do, for its vertebrae have 

 the ball and socket arrangement of serpents instead of 

 the cup arrangement of fishes. In this fish we have the 

 only living type of the prevailing family of fishes in the 

 Coal period. Some of the fishes of that family were 

 such monsters in size, compared with the gar-pike, that 

 the'sublime language of Job about the Leviathan could 

 be properly applied to them. Hugh Miller says of them, 

 "If the gar-pike, a fish from three to four feet in length, 

 can make itself so formidable from its great strength and 

 activity, and the excellence 'of its armor, that even the 

 cattle and horses that come to drink at the water's side 

 are scarce safe from its attacks, what must have been the 

 character of a fish of the same reptilian order from thirty 

 to forty feet in length, furnished with teeth thrice larger 

 than the largest alligator, and ten times larger than the 

 bulkiest Lepidosteus, and that was covered from snout 

 to tail with an impenetrable mail of enameled bone ?" 



334. Mollusks. Of these there was a great abundance 

 and variety. The Brachiopods were largely represented. 

 Of the genus Productus there were many species, one of 

 which is represented in Fig. 135. It is called Productus 

 spinulosus, from the long, slender spines that project from 

 the shell. Of another genus of the Brachiopods, Spirifer, 



