Ii8 



THE CHAIN OF LIFE. 



But if fishes like the Lancelot preceded all others, we may 

 never find in a fossil state any traces of their soft and perish- 

 able bodies ; and even the Lampreys have no hard parts except 

 small horny teeth, which might easily escape observation. But 

 palaeontologists have sharp ^yes, and it has not escaped them 

 that certain microscopic tooth-like bodies are somewhat widely 

 distributed in the older rocks. In Russia, Pander has found in 

 the Upper Cambrian and Lower Silurian, and also in the 

 Devonian and Carboniferous, minute conical and comb-like 



Fig. I02. — Lower Silurian Conodonts. Magnified.— After Pander. 



teeth, to which he has given the name of Conodonts (Fig. 102), 

 and which he supposes to be the teeth of ancient Lampreys. 

 Similar teeth have been found by Moore and others in the Car- 

 boniferous of England, and by Newberry in Carboniferous shales 

 in Ohio. In point of form, these bodies certainly resemble 

 the teeth of the humble fishes to which they have been referred. 

 In the case of the C^larboniferous specimens from Ohio — the only 

 ones I have had an opportunity to examine— the material is 



