A MIOCENE CATASTROPHE 
IX 
gla>". Again, long after this was de- 
posited, the whole area was thrown to- 
gether into low folds. The Xyne de- 
posits now stand at an angle of about 
thirty degrees in the place where this 
slab was obtained. 
Above the Xyne lie further deposits 
of pure diatoms, to the depth of 350 
feet. In the upper stretches are many 
fossil fishes, of about twenty kinds, so 
far as observed, largely broken into 
fragments. Four kinds of Spanish 
mackerel, two kinds of porgy, a big sea- 
bass, three species of flounder, two 
rock-cod, two kinds of croaker, and 
others are present. Among these are 
two species of herring, one of them 
being Xyne. This, however, nowhere 
except in the one great layer, exists in 
mass or in large numbers. All these 
fishes of the upper regions are mainly 
molds, imprints of a fish skeleton, re- 
placed by diatoms. None of the her- 
ring skeletons is black or carbonized, 
like those taken in the great layer be- 
low. In the upper strata occur also a 
species of M cry us (fish duck), a heron, 
a porpoise, and a whale. Above the 
whole diatom mass lies in places a 
coarse, angular conglomerate, with 
many inchoate bones, mostly of whales, 
teeth of a man-eater shark, and here 
and there masses of limestone filled 
with Pectcn shells and other Miocene 
mollusks. 
These hills are now occupied by 
quarries, the diatom masses being sold 
under the patented trade name of 
“Celite.” The material is used as non- 
conducting packing for hot pipes 
(“Sil-o-Cel”) and for filtering liquids 
(“Filter-cel”). The siliceous crusts of 
the diatoms are insoluble in ordinary 
liquids, and by pouring them into a 
fluid and then filtering, everything in 
suspension is caught by the diatoms. 
Two problems remain, both probably 
insoluble. Why was this bay crowded 
with a billion individuals of Xyne to 
the exclusion of all other fish? Why 
did they all die instantly, quietly, with 
no sign of agony, and how were they 
hermetically sealed before going to 
pieces in decay? 
Heat, poison, gas, earthquake dis- 
turbance — you may answer. But no 
one knows, and anyone’s guess is as 
good as yours or mine. 
“Mammoth” has meant “huge” only 
about a hundred years. Mammoth is 
originally a Russian word derived from 
“earth” or “ground,” since the Rus- 
sians, finding remains of mammoths in 
the frozen soil, supposed them to be 
some sort of burrowing creature like 
a mole. As late as 1818 an English 
traveler wrote of the great cave in Ken- 
tucky. “They call it Mammoth Cave, 
but why I do not know, for there are 
no mammoth bones found there.” 
This big rock-cod ( Rixator porteousi, shown less than one-third size) probably perished in the 
same fashion as the herring but at a later date. Its head is crushed as is the case with fish which 
die in the sea, for the skeletons of the bodies are picked clean by small organisms, but the brain 
is left within the skull and causes the bones to decay. 
