MIRACLES OF SCIENCE 



wide for fossil specimens that would reveal details 

 as to the structure of the ostracoderms. His visits to 

 the best zoological collections of Europe gave a good 

 deal of information but left much to be desired. He 

 then began the systematic searching of certain strata 

 of fossil-bearing rocks at the Bay of Chaleur in Can- 

 ada. Here fragments of fossils were found on the 

 beach at low tide, or could be obtained by splitting 

 open disk-shaped nodules that had washed from the 

 adjacent cliff. To secure perfect specimens it was 

 necessary to make excavations in the face of the 

 cliff itself. For four successive summers this work 

 was carried on, many tons of rock being dug out and 

 split open, before a rich fossil bed was discovered. 



The exploration of this bed proved hazardous as 

 masses of rock fell from time to time from the 

 crumbling cliffs. But the excavation was continued, 

 and the bed was found literally to teem with the 

 remains of a particular species of ostracoderm 

 (Eothriolepis Canadensis) in a state of preservation 

 more complete and instructive, Professor Patten 

 thinks, than that of any other fossil found hereto- 

 fore. In a recent article in "The Popular Science 

 Monthly," Professor Patten gives a vivid description 

 of the finding of this fossil bed, and a most interest- 

 ing account of the probable way in which it was 

 formed, way back in a romote geological era. 



"The bed had apparently formed the bottom of a 

 shallow brackish water-pool in which fern-like water 

 plants had been growing, and where many millions 

 of years ago, with the rise and fall of the tides, these 

 specimens had been trapped, together with other 



