XII 
THE GUIDE TO NATURE 
A RECORD IN STONE OF AN" EXTINCT HERRING. 
Earthquake or other catastrophe destroyed more than a billion herring — they themselves wrote the story 
in stone for future ages to read. In what was once a hay, when the Sierra Santa Ynez, of Santa Barbara 
County, California, were below sea level, are to be found the remains, representing an extinct species, 
Xyne gre.r. These myriads of fish had entered the bay and spread over the four square miles of bottom, 
doubtless for the purpose of spawning, when some catastrophe overtook them and they all, with one accord, 
lay down and died. Subsequently their remains were buried under masses of diatoms. The organic parts 
of the skeletons are carbonized so that the bones are black, as is generally the case with animals decom- 
posed under water where more hydrogen and oxygen than carbon are given off with a residue of the last, 
the final result being the noncrystalline mineral, collophanc (carbono-phosphate of lime). 
