The Foot-prints of the Creator : $b or, The Asterolepis of Stromness
John Stuart Mill · en
Of the upper maxillary bones of the _Asterolepis_, I only know that
a considerable fragment of one of the pieces, recognized as such by
Agassiz, has been found in the neighborhood of Thurso by Mr. Dick,
unaccompanied, however, by any evidence respecting its place or function.
It exhibits none of the characteristic tubercles of the dermal bones,
and no appearance of teeth; but is simply a long bent bone, resembling
somewhat less than the half of an ancient bow of steel or horn,—such
a bow as that which Ulysses bended in the presence of the suitors.
By some of the Russian geologists this bone was at first regarded as
a portion of the arm or wing of some gigantic _Pterichthys_. In the
accompanying print (fig. 34) I have borrowed the general outline from
that of a specimen of Professor Asmus, of which a cast may be seen in
the British Museum; while the shaded portion represents the fragment
found by Mr. Dick. The intermaxillary bones, like the dermal plates of
the lower jaw, were studded by star-like tubercles, and bristled thickly
along their lower edges with the ichthyic teeth, flanked by teeth of
the reptilian character. The opercules of the animal consisted, as in
the sturgeon, of single plates (fig. 35) of great massiveness and size,
thickly tubercled outside, without trace of joint or suture, and marked
on their under surface by channelled lines, that radiate, as in the other
plates, from the centre of ossification. That space along the nape which
intervened between the opercules, was occupied, as in the _Dipterus_ and
_Diplopterus_, by three plates, which covered rather the anterior portion
of the body than the posterior portion of the head, and which, in the
restoration of _Osteolepis_, (fig. 13,) appear as the plates, 9, 9, 9. I
can say scarce any thing regarding the lateral plates which lay between
the intermaxillaries and the cranial buckler, and which exist in the
_Osteolepis_, fig. 13, as the plates 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7; nor do I know how
the snout terminated, save that in a very imperfect specimen it exhibits,
as in the _Diplopterus_ and _Osteolepis_, a rounded outline, and was set
with teeth.
[Illustration: Fig. 35.
INNER SURFACE OF OPERCULUM OF ASTEROLEPIS.
(One fifth nat. size, linear.)]
[Illustration: Fig. 36.
HYOID PLATE.
(One ninth nat. size, linear.)]