John Mason Clarke

“ Except for that slender radical element of the community which proudly avows its willingness to see the Falls wholly developed into power all will agree that if danger is impending to the cataract it is time now that the danger be measured and fully apprehended.
The conservation of Niagara Falls is a question of public morals. Every industrial enterprise of wide scope has as its foundation a moral problem; it can not be simply the producer of great wealth regardless of the rights of others and of the higher claims of community life ”

“ Hughmilleria is a good genus that requires distinction as being of a primitive or generalized character, through which it has points of similarity with a number of other genera. It is certain that, notwithstanding its exterior similarity to Eurypterus, it points, by virtue of its cordate metastoma, the intramarginal to marginal position of the compound eyes, the slightly longer preoral appendages, its slender body, less developed swimming legs and the opercular appendage, to the path of development taken by Pterygotus after separation from its common ancestor with Eurypterus. ”

“ The postabdomen is the longest division of the body. It surpasses by one half the preabdomen, decreases gradually in width to nearly one half, while at the same time the length of the segments is doubled, in the first segment the width surpassing the length five and one half times, and in the last not even one half times (actual proportion 10 : 54; 20 : 28) . The postabdominal segments are furnished with distinct epimera that increase in width with each succeeding member, and are prolonged into short spurs, except on the last segment where they are produced into long, rounded lobes. ”

“ The turning of the waters a few days ago into the largest turbines the world has ever seen, thus inaugurating the actual production of Canadian power, sounded the death knell of the American Falls, leaving to those whose hearts sink and whose spirits shrivel at the thought of this destruction only a slender hope that it may be mechanically impracticable or commercially unprofitable to produce to the maximum amounts. ”

“ Any one who has watched the ease with which this interesting arachnid swims by means of its long spider legs and even overtakes its prey of water insects, can not fail to appreciate the swimming possibilities of even the awkward looking Stylonurus. This water spider also differs from other spiders by having the median eyes raised on a round mound, and the lateral ones on oblique nodes, just as in the eurypterids and especially in Stylonurus. The water spider swims with its right (dorsal) side up, and by analogy we infer that the similar Stylonurus group did the same. ”

“ The attitude of the man who is willing and ready to see Niagara entirely drained for the wealth it would produce, and only a dreary canyon left to speak of its splendid past, is wholly intelligible, or would be except for the potent facts that wealth and happiness and contentment are purely relative and that the natural forces of the world were not created for the use of man. ”

“ In the Old Red sandstone of the Devonian both in Europe and America a similar association obtained. A most extraordinary group of fishes and a family of most gigantic crustaceans flourished where marine life found only an occasional and meager presence. These few marine forms, here and there in a massive deposit, no more imply prevalent salt water than the present marine species in the bay of San Francisco imply that the gravels, sands and silts of the valley of California and of the Great Basin, which seem to be analogues of the Old Red sandstone, are prevailingly marine. ”

“ In taxation of the power product, not necessarily for revenue but for protection, seems to me to lie the sole means of control of the problem, the only way of saving our national pride before the bar of the world. ”

“ On the other hand, these hind legs show none of those characters which naturally accompany a swimming function, such as a widening of the joints and an intricate articulation insuring rigidity of the legs, while the preceding legs, in some species as S. cestrotus, are provided with a dense fringe of contiguous spines or bristles well adapted to broaden the swimming surface of the limbs. To the first leg of S. excelsior which is the only one observed, paired flat spines are attached whose form suggests their adaptation to swimming. We are disposed to regard all legs as adapted for crawling. ”

“ Citizens of Niagara Falls who have the cataract daily before the eye have insisted that the loss of water is perceptible, and that such loss is felt in other ways is seen in the now annual gorging of the ice in the American channel at the upper end of Goat Island, which lays bare the American channel, sends all its water to Canada, and which very rarely happened when the depth of the water was normal.
The two active American companies are not going to use any less water than now, but are vigorously increasing their output and building new power houses to meet their growing market. ”

“ Huxley and Salter placed P. bilobus in a separate subgenus, Erettopterus, on account of its bilobed telson. While some have recognized this group as a distinct genus, others have not given it even subgeneric rank. Laurie states that the species with such telsons "might fairly be separated from the rest as a subgenus, were it not that the frequent absence of the tail would make such an arrangement highly inconvenient." In our view the recognition of a natural group can not be a matter of convenience, but is of necessity, when the differences are recognized as subgeneric in rank. ”

“ This claim of the higher life, the demands of the finer emotions, the love for the beautiful in nature, express themselves in part in the government protection of natural wonders from defacement and destruction; in organizations created to keep alive this sentiment and extend the aegis of the state over natural glories which belong to mankind rather than to men. No wise man confesses himself devoid of such emotions. ”

“ In Eurypterus and Eusarcus the transparent spots are distinctly thickened into lenslike bodies. The ocellar tubercle is always situated on the median line of the carapace and it wanders forward and backward with the lateral eyes so that as a rule it is on a cross line connecting the posterior extremities of the lateral eyes. Exceptions are made by the genera Eusarcus, Pterygotus and Slimonia where the lateral eyes have become marginal at the front of the carapace while the ocelli remain on the middle of the carapace, thus retaining the advantage of their position at the apex of the shield. ”

“ The postabdomen, always a slender part of the body with much lengthened posterior segments in later forms, is here short and broad, the segments not at all increasing in length backward. Altogether, all abdominal segments retain a highly primitive and simple aspect in their appearance as uniformly narrow straight bands that hardly bend forward at the lateral extremities. The first tergite, however, has progressed in development beyond the others, and, as in the Siluric genera, is more closely connected with the carapace than with the abdomen, and is distinctly bent forward at the extremities. ”

“ The hope lies herein, that the companies, either through mechanical limitations, difficulties of cheap production or cheap transportation to a distant market, or through taxation of their product, may not be able to reach the volume of abstraction which is to seriously involve the splendor of the cataract. In this age of marvels, no present mechanical obstacles will long hold sway; the genius of man will overcome them all. ”

“ In summing up the evidence regarding the life mode of the eurypterids, and in view of the variety of forms with incipient adaptations, it would be a legitimate inference that the whole group was not so highly specialized as the recent merostomes and was still able to use different methods of locomotion though no one of them with great proficiency. Some were best adapted to swimming, others to crawling and many to finding their food by grubbing in the mud. [6]
Some light seems also to be shed on their probable mode of life by a consideration of the separate faunules to which they pertain. ”

“ Paulmier states that "as may be supposed from the finlike posterior legs, it is a good swimmer and may often be found at the surface." On the other hand, he says of the lady crab, which has quite similar swimming legs: "Its usual habitat is the sandy beaches, even the most exposed, when at low water mark it buries itself all but the eyes and antennae and is on the watch for enemies and prey. If disturbed when feeding or if dug out, it disappears with great rapidity, burrowing backward into the sand." ”

“ There should be a remedy for every public menace. If there is in the American people, especially in the citizens of New York and Ontario, a sturdy purpose to save Niagara, if it is proposed to meet the problem and solve it, it will be found to possess difficulties enough. The working companies are established in their rights and entirely correct in their demeanor toward the state. ”

“ The carapace of the nepionic stage is also wider than any other part of the body, the latter tapering directly from the base of the carapace to the tail.
The imperfection of the body is very apparent in the first individual, which probably had no more than six or seven segments and the next but eight or nine without the telson. The segments are all of equal length, but diminish rapidly in width, while in the mature Pterygotus they gradually widen to the fourth and thence again very gradually contract to the telson. ”

“ In the group represented by Eusarcus, the carapace is subtriangular, raised in front, where it bears the marginal compound eyes, the walking legs are powerful and provided with long spines, the preabdomen is very broad and flat, the tail long and scorpionlike, with a curved spine that could be raised above the body as an organ of defense. This is a quite aberrant and highly specialized genus and doubtless its habits were different from those of the other genera. ”

“ HISTORY OF INVESTIGATIONS UPON THE EURYPTERIDS OF NEW YORK AND ADJOINING TERRITORY
The Siluric rocks of New York are, of all countries of the world, the richest in eurypterids. The first example ever described was obtained here. The specimen was found in Westmoreland, Oneida co., and was regarded by Dr S. L. Mitchill [1818]
Figure 1 DeKay's figure of Eurypterus remipes as a fossil fish of the genus Silurus, an error obviously induced by the peculiar catfishlike aspect of the carapace. ”

“ The slender fishlike form is typically expressed by Hughmilleria [see restoration, pl. 59] where the body expands but slightly in the anterior third and then tapers very gradually to the caudal spine; the head shield is semiovoid and the body less depressed than in other genera. Pterygotus is similarly built, but the head shield is more rounded in front and some species are broad and plump. In Eurypterus the lateral expansion or flattening of the body becomes manifest in both head shield and abdomen and the contraction of the body to the caudal portion is more abrupt. ”

“ The species which seem to us of especial interest in the explanation of the strange structure of the swimming leg are Eurypterus (Onychopterus) kokomoensis and Dolichopterus macrochirus. The former [pl. 26, fig. 2] shows the most primitive shape of the swimming leg known to us. This primitive character manifests itself most distinctly in the following features. Beginning at the distal end, the ninth segment is a well developed terminal claw, such as is found on the other legs, indicating that the minute ninth segment of Eurypterus is a reduced terminal claw. ”

“ In a recent exhaustive discussion, Girty [25] has reached the conclusion that it seems most reasonable to regard the fauna of the Carbonic of Pennsylvania "as a natural assemblage of species selected and modified by a habitat, if not in strictly marine, at least not in strictly fresh waters."
There is, however, clear evidence at hand of the fresh-water habitat of the Carbonic eurypterids in other regions. One of these is the occurrence of Eurypterus (Adelophthalmus) granosus Jordan in the coal measures of Saarbrücken. ”

“ The aspect of the Kokomo fauna is in full accordance with this correlation since at least two of the species (Onychopterus kokomoensis and Drepanopterus longicaudatus) may be considered as older types than the species of the Bertie waterlime and following faunas.
The Guelph dolomite, like the Clinton, has afforded only a single straggler, the eurypterid facies of the horizon not yet having been observed; but the directly following age, that of the basal Salina, is represented by two faunas in New York State, viz, those of the Pittsford and Shawangunk shales. ”

“ From these notes on the habits of the American king crab it may be inferred that though a good swimmer, it mostly frequents the bottom and is a crawler, but feeds by digging in the mud and sand. In an aquarium such as that in Castle Garden, New York, it can be seen to swim easily by napping the powerful sternites which thus function as breathing and swimming organs. ”

“ In the burrowing operation the forward edge of the anterior shield is pressed downwards and shoved forwards, the two shields being inflected, and the sharp point of the tail providing the fulcrum as it pierces the mud, while underneath the feet are incessantly active, scratching up and pushing out the earth on both sides. There is a singular economy of force in this excavating action, for the alternating doubling up or inflecting and straightening out of the two carapaces with the pushing purchase exerted by the tail spine, accomplish both digging and a subterranean progression. ”

“ An additional point to be brought forward to show that the trilobites probably pass the greater part of their life on their back, and died in that attitude, is that the young Limulus generally feed while turned on their back; moving at an angle with the bottom, the hind extremity raised, they throw out their feet beyond the anterior edge of the carapace, browsing, as it were, upon what they find in their road, and washing away what they do not want by means of a powerful current produced by their abdominal appendages. ”