The Ancient Life History of the Earth: A Comprehensive Outline of the Principles and Leading Facts of Palæontological ScienceNicholson, Henry Alleyne
Science
The Ancient Life History of the Earth: A Comprehensive Outline of the Principles and Leading Facts of Palæontological Science
Nicholson, Henry Alleyne
Paleontology
[Illustration: Fig. 81--_Zaphrentis cornicula_, of the natural
size. Devonian, America. (Original.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 82--_Heliophyllum exiguum_, viewed from in
front and behind. Of the natural size. Devonian, Canada. (Original.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 83.--Portion of a mass of _Crepidophyllum
Archiaci_, of the natural size. Hamilton Formation, Canada. (After
Billings.)]
No true _Graptolites_ have ever been detected in strata of Devonian
age; and the whole of this group has become extinguished--unless we
refer here the still surviving _Dictyonemoe_. The _Coelenterates_,
however, are represented by a vast number of _Corals_, of beautiful
forms and very varied types. The marbles of Devonshire, the Devonian
limestones of the Eifel and of France, and the calcareous strata
of the Corniferous and Hamilton groups of America, are often
replete with the skeletons of these organisms--so much so as to
sometimes entitle the rock to be considered as representing an
ancient coral-reef. In some instances the Corals have preserved
their primitive calcareous composition; and if they are embedded
in soft shales, they may weather out of the rock in almost all
their original perfection. In other cases, as in the marbles
of Devonshire, the matrix is so compact and crystalline that
the included corals can only be satisfactorily studied by means
of polished sections. In other cases, again, the corals have
been more or less completely converted into flint, as in the
Corniferous limestone of North America. When this is the case,
they often come, by the action of the weather, to stand out from
the enclosing rock in the boldest relief, exhibiting to the observer
the most minute details of their organization. As before, the
principal representatives of the Corals are still referable to
the groups of the _Rugosa_ and _Tabulata_. Amongst the Rugose
group we find a vast number of simple "cup-corals," generally
known by the quarrymen as "horns," from their shape. Of the many
forms of these, the species of _Cyathophyllum, Heliophyllum_
(fig. 82), _Zaphrentis_ (fig. 81), and _Cystiphyllum_ (fig. 80),
are perhaps those most abundantly represented--none of these
genera, however, except _Heliophyllum_, being peculiar to the
Devonian period. There are also numerous compound Rugose corals,
such as species of _Eridophyllum, Diphyphyllum, Syringopora,
Phillipsastroea_, and some of the forms of _Cyathophyllum_ and
_Crepidophyllum_ (fig. 83). Some of these compound corals attain
a very large size, and form of themselves regular beds, which
have an analogy, at any rate, with existing coral-reefs, though
there are grounds for believing that these ancient types differed
from the modern reef-builders in being inhabitants of deep water.
The "Tabulate Corals" are hardly less abundant in the Devonian
rocks than the _Rugosa_; and being invariably compound, they
hardly yield to the latter in the dimensions of the aggregations
which they sometimes form.
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