A NATURALIST’S RAMBLES ABOUT KANSAS CITY. 59 
seas, whose sharp triangular teeth we occasionally find here, being all that is left 
of their cartilaginous bodies. 
Descending the hill, we come to the base of a cliff thirty feet in height. The 
rock is solid and close-grained, barren of fossils except here and there a crinoid 
stem or stray shell of an Ayris, showing that it was formed in a still, quiet sea 
too deep for animal life, and we pause to think how many thousands of years it 
took to form this one bed, if it is true, as geologists suppose, that these rocks 
were formed by the slow deposition of sediment washed from the ancient shores, 
settling down at the rate of a few inches ina century. Yet this one bed is no 
more in the carboniferous formation alone than a single leaf in Webster’s Great 
Unabridged, compared with the whole volume. This cliff rests upon another bed 
of limestone formed under different conditions. It is an impure shaly limestone, 
bedded in irregular wave-like layers,. showing that it was deposited in a shallow, 
muddy sea under the influence of a strong current. It has but few fossils except 
in the upper part, where there are many of the lace-like skeletons of a species of 
coral (Fenestella). And so each stratum’ of rock or shale tells its own history to. 
the experienced eye of the geologist as he passes along. 
Next below this is a bed of shale about fifteen feet in thickness. It is entirely 
destitute of fossils except a thin seam about two inches in thickness near the cen- 
ter, which is one mass of the stems and plates of crinoids (stone lilies) and other 
fossils peculiar to the carboniferous. Here, under favorable conditions, an anima} 
life suddenly sprang into existence, grew and flourished for a while, and as sudden. 
ly perished. This place has yielded many beautiful fossils to the collector, crznoids, 
Edmondia, Euomphalos, Hemipronites, Bellerophon percarinata, &c., all in a fine 
state of preservation. Here was found an almost perfect specimen of the head of 
Zeacrinus Mucrospinus, a crinoid, and the only perfect one ever found anywhere, 
so far as we know. In a little pool of water at the bottom of this bed of shale we 
found our first Rotifer Vulgaris, or wheel animalcule, after having long sought for 
it in vain in other localities. Marvelous tales have been told of the tenacity of 
life in this little animal, especially by the Abbe Fontana, who wrote a celebrated 
work on the Poison of the Viper. It was claimed that it could be boiled, baked 
and dried for an indefinite time, and then resuscitated with a drop of water. The 
savants fought long and bitterly with their accustomed acrimony and tenacity 
over this question, and finally left off where they began, neither side being con- 
vinced. All that we ever found perished on the slide as suddenly as any of their 
species, when deprived of moisture. They are, however, a most beautiful and 
wonderful object under the microscope at all times, and well worth the trouble it 
sometimes takes to find them. Their brilliant and crystalline structure allows the 
inspection of their inner formation, and they will kindly feed on indigo, vermilion 
_ or any other coloring matter and make curious and interesting spectacles of them- 
selves. Often they can be found in almost any puddle of water, and again we 
_ may hunt a whole season for them and not find one—at least such has been our 
_ experience. 
