14 



GIANTS AND PIGMIES. 



■' J 



bulky as a large porpoise. Thus in the not unimportant cir- 

 cumstance of sizo, instead of taking their places agreeably to 

 the demands of the development hypothesis among the sprats, 

 stickle backs, and minnows of their class, they took their place 

 among its huge basking sharks, gigantic sturgeons and bulky 

 sword fishes. They were giants, not dwarfs." 



Fishes have been found in the Huron Shale of Canada, the 

 upper member of the Devonian System in Ohio (Old Red 

 Sandstone) "which are closely allied to Coccosteus, hut very 

 much larger, having a length of 15 or 18 feet, while 

 Coccosteus was only as many inches in length. This has been 

 named by Dr. Newberry, Dinichthys. He has given the name 

 Titanichthys to another found by Mr. Terrell in the same 

 shales, about two years since, which he describes as a Placoderm 

 fish still more gigantic than the Dinichtlrys. The largest 

 cranium of the* latter is about 3 feet broad across the occiput 

 while the former has a breadth of about 4 feet." 



The Geological Formation that succeeds the Old Red Sand- 

 stone or Devonian is the Carboniferous or Coal-bearing. In this 

 we recognize three divisions, lower and middle and upper, some 

 style the whole as Permo-Carboniferous and others call the 

 upper division Permian (Perm in Russia). In the Lower we 

 have Phillipsia, the last of our trilohites. Antigonish and 

 Hants limestones have furnished these. Prof. How found 

 first the Hants specimens, and they have been called Phihpsia 

 Howi. I found the Antigonish specimen. They are of small 

 size. It is an interesting circumstance that Prof. How sent 

 one of the first specimens to me at the Great London Exhi- 

 bition of 1862. If I remember rightly Professor Phillips of 

 Oxford was the first visitor to whom I showed it. He M'as 

 agreeably surprised to find that his namesake existed in the 

 Lower Carboniferous Limestone as in Great Britain. The finding 

 of the same trilobite in the Ohio Lower Carboniferous Lime- 

 stone, Antigonish, was a little singular. Sheriff Hill, of 

 Antigonish, was my companion on the occasion. Looking at 

 the limestones, observing their colour, fossils and relative 

 position, I said to the Sheriff, I must find a Phillipsia here. 



