| Show EES that saw fk ago WHEN life YOUNG time was a stripling lad when this animal annual swam the seas grew the beard lie now wear after this tune time think of stepping bach back in tune time If millions illions lears 11 EVOLUTION FROM CO 60 TO 90 D AT THAT TIME E es enable ci Cica ealure ture to e its many faster ilov ing foes smithsonian institution LENDS SPECIMEN rt 4 A 1 44 t side view of the trilobite 2 times natural size showing the large eye from which it gets its name the animal is partly curled up I 1 had been studying trilobites for some time hoping to find a men with eyes failing in the search 7 wrote to the sm tion to send me an actual specimen which did have eyes so that I 1 might know what to look tor for they very kindly consented and in a few days the original trilobite came which I 1 photographed the photo ac compan ying this article it chy hy 20 1 I ears igo physicists scientists astronomers and all laymen have at times sought to determine the relative age of the earth and when life first came upon it whatever the figure was it was very hard indeed because of frecon views to put it back very tar far one after another barriers were re mo moved ved until walcott gave 30 years ago as the relative time of the cambrian period and 20 years ago as the relative lye time for the devonian period it was during the devonian period that this creature lived the U S guide gulde book mock osborn a origin of lite life cham salisbury college geology kerts s geology in tact fact almost all authors concur in a relative date of approximately 20 years ago for the devonne devon in period and tor for the period when the trilobites we find at antelope spring were living middle cambrian ten milion years earlier or 30 years ago the trilobite we find at antelope springs is a more primitive creature than this one eyes then had not been so highly specialized is later in my hunt I 1 had found eyebrows eye brows ridges ans and every indica tion of incipient eyes hue bue never an actual eye facet the specimen loan ed was of the trilobite with the largest eye facets of any species as best for the study of an amateur these eye facets can be seen plainly with the unaided eye and very east ly distinguishable with a magnifica tion of only ten times meaning of word what don t we owe to the indent greek we wrote the bible in his tongue because he was vas so versatile and had developed such a fluent lan ian guage and his activities were enor his range of thought almost all embracing so scholars the world over have used greek and its later relative or descendant latin to designate scientific terms which must be read all over the world by japanese swedes the and united State sers the ancient greek raised tafv A 4 v lx wit raja A 4 food which we today call a lentil we call it lentil because its seed is shaped just like a lens a double convex lens which you all know in a reading glass a magni filer or a common burning glass the lat in word for lens is lens bentis so v e get the latin in our lentil but the ancient greek word tor for the plant the lentil was and for eye was OPS hence a lentil like eye was putting together the two words into the form OPS shortened chort ened into the trilobite with the lens like eye so very large and plain as to distinguish it above all other trilobites for its large coa coarse r se ly faceted eye this specimen sent me came from indiana when the ocean over ran that part of the united states as well as this part of utah on this specimen of I 1 counted twelve rows of facets I 1 did n t count how many in each row as some were indistinct and some oth ers lightly crushed these facets measure two to the millimeter other species range from six to fourteen to the mili menter while the smallest number as man many y as 14 facets per eye could roll up foi escape this trilobite cound roll up like a pill bug when it saw an enemy and thus present on every side the hard horny case which covered it this no dought often saved its life the trilobites we get here at an delope springs fifty milea miles west of delta had not accomplished that power yet they were more or less inflexible and so far as I 1 know no enrolled specimen has ever been dis covered of one in our area but they were segmented and just moderately flexible partly able to curl up for protection in late cambrian time they had acquired the ability to curl to a greater degree and by the time the ordovician period came in many could nicely curl and better and better eyes came in during middle cambrian the tri lobitos were the dominant life they ruled things but on came a swit ter moving creature the cephalopod who could clean up on the bite because taster faster and better man dacut ory powers could chew better the trilobite had no teeth the ceph alolod had a horny beak a great advantage and gave him the ascend ancy over the trilobite then evo lution had to devise ways of protect ing the trilobite from extinction at the hands of his better equipped ri val hence eyes enrollment spines whatever would enable the bite to escape or word off the at tack of the other at the time in the earth earths s history when the trilobites of antelope springs were living 30 years ago elrethia Ei El rathia etc etc the cephalopods had long clumsy straight shells and were compared to now slow movers but then corn com pa fast later they in turn got swifter and swifter with a shell that for economy s sake and to tree free the creature for faster movement began to curl by devonian time the cephalopod and the armored fishes had gained supremacy and slow ly the trilobite was waning already he had begun to disappear bizarre forms crept in in a futile effort to stay things a while geologists say that whenever excess be gins the life pulse in waning and the end is coming on apace so it was with dinosaurs when they were putting up a hard tight fight against their ene enemies intes and were mighty hard run tor for it they developed excess ar mor great spines huge plates and were battel ships afield the more nimble 1 creature could hit aad and run i i aws 2 and live to hit again but the dino well his epitaph tells it all it wasn gasn t very long after the te de Y period when the trilobite be came actually extinct that Is very lo 10 long g geologically speaking he was done for and never could stage a come back forests just beginning then in devonian time dense verdure was just beg beginning ining forests were be ginning to clothe the land trees up to thirty five feet are found in fossil form f orm and hirsson say one only one ione fossil imprint of an air breather vertebrate was found the imprint pressed into soft mud on the sea shore where the creature was walking after its food the ex pertinent perl ment of the had only just nicely begun but already the prophecy of the dominance of fishes had been fulfilled and the as tendency cen dency of air breathers was lust just beginning to be hinted at the time this creature lived by movement or other cause the pacific ocean began to nose in a low place on the lower part ot of call fornia it nosed in farther and tar far ther then across nevada then into utah right over the spot we are now living on and up encroaching on ida ho past that state letting in coral and warm marine water life upon our land until the advancing waters met the arctic ocean above and the was complete by then only a little portion of california waa was out of water a mere small island A bigger island was oregon washing ton and all of alaska on the other part of the united states the gulf of mexico advanced up country from about new orleans covering with the sea indiana from which state this trilobite came on and on up until the advancing waters met the st lawrence run way and that circuit was complete in next week weeks s issue I 1 will speak more in detail of the eye of thie this crea ture lure and about some other eyes in my display case a most fascinating bit from the record of time frank beckwith sr |
