194 THE SECONDARY AGES. 



the internal bones from the thickness of a quill to the size 

 of a man's arm. There are few things so noticeable in 

 these secondary ages as this exuberance of chambered 

 shells ammonites, baculites, hamites, scaphites, and tur- 

 rilites ; or of these internal bones belemnites, acantho- 

 teuthis, belemnoteuthis, conoteuthis, and leptoteuthis* Many 

 of the strata are surcharged with their remains ; and as the 

 cephalopods are active and predaceous in their habits, the 

 lower life in which they fed must have been still more 

 abundant, while they in turn became the chosen food of 

 the larger fishes and reptiles. Occasionally we hear, as a 

 matter of marvel, of the capture in tropical waters of cuttle- 

 fishes eight or ten feet in length ; how transcendently more 

 wonderful the thronging of these secondary seas with 

 myriads of the same order still more gigantic in size and 

 more diversified in feature ! Strange, too, that the ocean 

 which then swarmed with nautiloid forms should now 

 contain only a single genus ! Inexplicable, were there no 

 plan of vital progression to which these extinctions and 

 creations could be systematically conformed. 



Even still more remarkable was the exuberance of rep- 

 tilian life that thronged the seas, the estuaries, the rivers, 

 and river-plains of the secondary ages. Nothing known 

 before or since of reptile life is at all comparable either in 

 point of variety, size, or numbers. Our museums are re- 

 plete with their remains, and in conditions so perfect, that 

 almost every feature can be restored in natural proportion 

 and life-like reality. Whale -like and confined to the 

 waters, crocodilian -like and amphibious, mammalian -like 

 and treading the land, or bird-like and winging the air 



* Ammonites (coiled up like the horn of Jupiter Ammon) ; bactilites 

 (straight or staff-shaped) ; hamites (hook-shaped) ; scaphites (boat-shaped) ; 

 turrilites (tapering and turret-shaped) ; belemnites (dart-like) ; acantho- 

 teuthis (thorn -like organ); belemno- (bolt -like); cono- (conical); lepto- 

 (elender) ; and so on. 



