INTRODUCTION 
HISTORY OF INVESTIGATIONS UPON THE EURYPTERIDS OF NEW YORK AND ADJOINING 
TERRITORY 
The Siluric rocks of New York are, of all countries of the world, the 
richest in eurypterids. The first example ever described was obtained 
here. The specimen was found in Westmoreland, Oneida co., and was 
regarded by Dr S. L. Mitchill [1818] as a fossil fish of the genus Siturus, an 
error obviously induced : 
by the peculiar catfishlike 
aspect of the carapace. 
In 1825, James E. DeKay, 
afterward the distin- 
guished zoologist of the 
Natural History Survey, 
recognized the arthropod 
nature of this fossil. He 
erected for it the genus 
EURYPTERUS, and termed 
the species E. remipes, 
considering it as a crusta- 
cean of the order Branch- 
1opoda, naming Apus, 
among others, as a recent 
form probably of near re- 
lation to it and suggest- 
DeKay’s figure of Eurypterus remipes 
ing that Eurypterus may Figure 1 
be a connecting link between the trilobites and recent Branchiopoda. 
In 1835, Dr Richard Harlan described the Eurypterus 
lacustris, the predominant species in the Siluric waterlime at 
Buffalo, and next in abundance to E. remipes. 
These descriptions preceded those of European species by a con- 
siderable interval; hence they were frequently copied into early text- 
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