102 ANIMALS SPEEDILY BURIED. 



The fishes of Torre d'Orlando, in the Bay of Naples^ 

 near Castelamare, seem also to have perished suddenly 

 M. Agassiz finds that the countless individuals which occur 

 there in Jurassic limestone, all belong to a single species, the 

 Pyenodus rhombus. Tetragonolepis. An entire shoal seems 

 to have been destroyed at once, at a pface where the waters 

 were either contaminated with some noxious impregnation, 

 or overcharged with heat.* 



In the same manner also, we may imagine deposites from 

 muddy w^ater, mixed perhaps with noxious gases, to have 

 formed by their sediments a succession of thick beds of marl 

 and clay, such as those of the Lias formation ; and at the 

 same time to have destroyed, not only the Testacea and 

 lower orders of animals inhabiting the bottom, but also the 

 higher orders of marine creatures within the regions thus 

 invaded. Evidence of the fact of vast numbers of fishes 

 and saurians having met with sudden death and immediate 

 burial, is also afforded by the stale of entire preservation in 

 which the bodies of hundreds of them are often found in the 

 Lias. It sometimes happens that scarcely a single bone, or 

 scale, has been removed from the place it occupied during 

 life ; this condition could not possibly have been retained, 

 had the uncovered bodies of these animals been left, even 

 for a few hours, exposed to putrefaction, and to the attacks 

 of fishes and other smaller animals at the bottom of the sea.f 



smaller fish supposed to be swallowed, in such as never could have entered 

 the diminutive stomach of the putative glutton ; moreover it decs not enter 

 within the margin ot its javvp. 



* Tiie proximity of Vina rock to t!ie Vesuvian cliain of volcanic eruptions, 

 offers a cause sufficient lo have imparted eitlicr of these destructive powers 

 to the Waters of a limited space in the bay of Naples, at a period preceding 

 those intense volcanic actions whicli prevailed in ihis district during the 

 deposition of tlie Tertiary strata, and which are still going on there. 



t Although it appears from the preservation of these animals, tliat certain 

 parts of the Lias were deposited rapidly, there arc also proofs of the lapse 

 of much time during tlic deposition of other parts of this formation. See, 

 IMotcs in future Chapters on Coprolitcs and fossil Loligo. 



