(;iA\r l'(tSSIL SI/Ah'K 



w 



were cxidcnt !>• t"()rini(lal)l(' creatures. One of tlu'iii in fact, Dimchlhi/s, 

 shown in the middle of the j»;allery, was i)rol)al)ly anions tlie most destruc- 

 tive creatures that ever hved in the sea. Its jaws were so stronji; that it 

 couhl crusli a i)late of bone as thick as one's hand. Such an actual speci- 

 men, fractured in life and showin<; the marks of "teeth" is shown in a 

 neiKlil)orin<>; case. 



^A^7 



! RESTORATION OF NAOSAURUS 



One of Nature's jokes. Professor Cope, who was also a joker, suggested that the high fin served 

 as a sail, by means of which Xaosaurus sailed over the lakes near which it lived. 



The collection is so arranged that he who makes the tour can see the 

 principal kinds of fossil fishes and is able, in a measure, to outline the 

 history and pedigree of the entire group. He can trace the rise and fall 

 of the early plate-covered fishes; the era of the sharks which on the one 

 hand supplanted the earliest fishes and were in time replaced by the more 

 efficient lungfishes and ganoids; the age of ganoids when the waters were 

 filled with these enamel-scaled fishes; finalh' the age of the bony-fishes, 

 or teleosts, the multitudinous forms of to-day, the herrings, cods, perches, 

 w^hose methods of swimming, feeding and breeding are far more efficient 

 than those of any of their predecessors. 



Above the entrance are the jaws (models), spreading nine feet, of a 

 / huge fossil shark in which the actual teeth are arranged as 



/i. 4. p M in the sharks of to-day, in the usual banks or rows — the 

 Shark teeth in the hinder rows serving to replace those in front, 



nature having dealt more kindly in the matter of teeth 

 with sharks than with man. Such a shark probably measured from 

 seventy to ninety feet and its race may well have become extinct, when 

 for various reasons the enormous volume of food necessary to support it 

 could not be maintained within its range of sea. 



I 



