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An Introduction to Programming
Using Visual Basic®
Tenth Edition

David I. Schneider

University of Maryland

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reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on the appropriate
page within text.

Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011, 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights
reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is
protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the
publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system,
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have been printed in initial caps or all caps.

The programs and applications presented in this book have been included
for their instructional value. They have been tested with care, but are not
guaranteed for any particular purpose. The publisher does not offer any
warranties or representations, nor does it accept any liabilities with respect
to the programs or applications.

MICROSOFT AND/OR ITS RESPECTIVE SUPPLIERS MAKE NO

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FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Schneider, David I., author.
Title: An introduction to programming using Visual Basic / David I.
Schneider, University of Maryland.
Description: Tenth edition. | Boston : Pearson Education, [2017] | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016003346| ISBN 9780134542782 | ISBN 0134542789
Subjects: LCSH: BASIC (Computer program language) | Visual Basic.
Classification: LCC QA76.73.B3 S333633 2017 | DDC 005.26/8--dc23 LC
record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016003346

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN - 10: 0-13-454278-9

ISBN - 13: 978-0-13-454278-2

Attention Students
Installing Visual Studio
To complete the tutorials and programming problems in this book, you need
to install Visual Studio 2015 on your computer.

We recommend that you download Visual Studio Community 2015 from

the following Web site, and install it on your system:

www.visualstudio.com

Visual Studio Community 2015 is a free, full-featured development

environment, and is a perfect companion for this textbook.

Note: If you are working in your school’s computer lab, there

is a good chance that Microsoft Visual Studio has already been installed. If
this is the case, your instructor will show you how to start Visual Studio.

Installing the Student Sample

Program Files
The Student Sample Program files that accompany this book are available
for download from the book’s companion Web site at:

http://www.pearsonhighered.com/cs-resources
These files are required for many of the book’s tutorials. Simply download
the Student Sample Program files to a location on your hard drive where
you can easily access them.
 VideoNote Guide to VideoNotes
www.pearsonhighered.com/cs-resources

1. Chapter 2 Visual Basic, Controls, and Events

1. Textbox Walkthrough 22

2. Button Walkthrough27

3. Event Procedures 37

2. Chapter 3 Variables, Input, and Output

1. Numbers & Strings 56

2. Variable Scope 82

3. Input Boxes and Message Boxes 97

3. Chapter 4 Decisions

1. Relational and Logical Operators 115

2. If Blocks 122

3. Select Case Blocks 146

4. Listboxes, Radio Buttons, and Checkboxes for Input 160

4. Chapter 5 General Procedures

1. Function Procedures 180

2. Sub Procedures 197

3. Debugging Functions and Sub Procedures 218

 5. Chapter 6 Repetition

1. Pretest Do Loops 242

2. For . . . Next Loops 257

3. List Boxes and Loops 273

6. Chapter 7 Arrays

1. Declaring and Using Arrays 295

2. For Each Loops 302

3. LINQ 321

7. Chapter 8 Text Files

1. StreamReaders and StreamWriters 413

2. Exception Handling 419

8. Chapter 9 Additional Controls and Objects

9. 1. List Boxes and Combo Boxes 454

2. Timer, Picturebox, Menustrip, and Scrollbar Controls 463

3. Graphics 491

10. Chapter 10 Databases

1. Introduction to Databases 514

2. Querying Tables 521

3. Editing Databases 540

11. Chapter 11 Object-Oriented Programming

1. Classes and Objects 552

2. Arrays of Objects 569

3. Inheritance 581
Guide to Application Topics
Business and Economics
Admission fee, 164

Airline reservations, 390, 508

Analyze a Loan case study, 376

Analyze fuel economy, 393

Analyze growth of chains, 372

Annuity, 69, 195, 240, 255, 269

APY, 142

Automated directory assistance, 392

Automobile depreciation, 268

Bank account, 600

Bond yield, 112

Break-even analysis, 68, 156

Business travel expenses, 510

Calculate a profit, 68, 127, 194

Calculate a tip, 137, 211

Calculate weekly pay, 138, 184, 223, 485, 567

Car loan, 176, 254, 269

Cash register, 567, 578, 579, 597

Cash reward, 157

Change from a sale, 138

Checking account transactions, 488

Compare interest rates, 141–42

Compare two salary options, 269

Compound interest, 172, 184, 195, 253, 268, 488

Consumer options, 158

Consumer price index, 254

Cost of a computer system, 169

Cost of a tour, 157

Cost of benefits, 165, 166

Cost of electricity, 88

Cost of flash drives, 171

Create sales receipt, 428

Credit card account, 222, 489

Crop production, 70, 271

Currency exchange rates, 534

Depreciation, 268, 286

Discounted price, 68, 87, 143

Display economic data in a bar chart, 270, 495, 502

Display economic data in a pie chart, 494, 502, 504

Dogs of the DOW, 360

Doubling time of an investment, 253, 285

Dow Jones Industrial Average, 360

Employee paycheck receipt, 579

FICA tax, 128, 229, 568

Future value, 91, 185

Gather billing information, 489

Generate an order form, 237

Growth of an investment, 195

Income tax, 140, 171

Individual Retirement Account, 288

Interest-Only mortgage, 598

ISBN code, 386

Itemized bill, 110, 237

Lifetime earnings, 268

Loan analysis, 111, 488

Loan calculator, 239

Mail-order company, 549

Maintain a membership list, 506

Manage telephone directories, 449

Marginal revenue and cost, 156

Marketing terms, 109

Membership fee, 171

Minimum wage, 502

Monetary units of countries, 528

Mortgage, 222, 254, 565

Mortgage with points, 598

Municipal bonds, 92

Number of restaurants in U.S., 70

Pay raise, 222

Payroll, 228, 485, 598

Percentage markup, 69

Postage costs, 194

Present value, 92

Price-to-earnings ratio, 89

Recording Checks and Deposits case study, 439

Rental costs, 175, 196

Restaurant order, 176, 579

Retirement plan, 170

Revenue, 156

Rule of ‘72’, 285

Salary, 108

Salary options, 271

Sales commission, 91

Savings account, 139

Simple interest, 268

Small dogs of the DOW, 361

Supply and demand, 271

Tax return, 171

Total cost, 137

Total salaries paid, 374

Track inventory, 370, 507, 597

U.S. national debt, 71

Universal Product Code, 450

Weekly Payroll case study, 228

Withdrawal from a savings account, 138

Withholding tax, 229, 579

General Interest
Academy awards, 359

Age of a tire, 158

Airplane animation, 505

American Heart Association recommendation, 175

Anagram, 332

Analyze grades, 276

Bachelor degrees conferred, 387

Birthdays, 141, 212, 256, 272

Body Mass Index, 193

Bouncing ball animation, 496

Caffeine absorption, 285

Calculate age, 96, 98, 108, 141, 172

Calendar, 412

Chain-link sentence, 320

Chocolate ice cream, 71

Cloudiness descriptors, 155

College admissions, 177

College credits, 345

College enrollments, 503

College majors, 503

College tuition, 196

Computer pioneers, 356

Convert temperatures, 181, 478

Country flags, 501, 505, 511

Crayola crayons, 318, 411

Declaration of Independence, 107

Determine day of week, 107

Dial a telephone, 490

Digital clock, 475

Distance between cities, 364

Distance from a storm, 87

Earliest colleges, 340, 343, 437

Freshman life goals, 503

Friday the 13th, 270

Game of Life, 391

Gettysburg Address, 71, 431

GPA, 237

Grade book, 550

Ideal weight, 268

Internet lingo, 505

Language translation, 388

Leap years, 139, 195

Manage a list of names, 417

Mean temperature, 431

Military time, 139

Monthly precipitation, 373

Movies, 139, 162, 243, 538, 539, 540, 547

Newton’s law of cooling, 256

Nutritional content of foods, 365

Old McDonald Had a Farm, 211

Palindrome, 288

Physician’s abbreviations, 157

Pig Latin, 138

Pizza consumption, 70

Population growth, 71, 253, 256

Population of cities, 522–27, 531, 532, 544, 547

Presidential age at inauguration, 299, 300, 318, 398, 399, 461

Presidential colleges, 359

Presidential eligibility, 170

Principal languages, 504

Proverbs, 238

Quasi-palindromes, 271

Quiz, 123, 137, 140, 148, 173

Qwerty word, 269

Radioactive decay, 254, 267

Rating of hurricanes, 193

Shakespeare sonnet, 316, 334

Smoking among college students, 502

Social networking sites, 371

Soundex system, 289

Speed of a car, 89

State abbreviations, 354, 404, 412, 414, 434, 577

State areas, 354, 412, 436

State birds, 429, 430

State capitals, 335, 429

State flowers, 173, 429, 430

State mottos, 173

State nicknames, 173, 429

 State populations, 199, 354, 404, 412, 577, 578

Stopwatch, 463

Supreme Court justices, 356, 357, 399, 400, 402, 411, 412

Times Square ball, 478

Training heart rate, 88, 194

U.S. cities, 352

U.S. presidents, 140, 148, 159, 317, 324, 333, 402, 406, 410

U.S. Senate, 438, 448

U.S. states, 274, 275, 281–83, 304, 316, 321, 326, 333, 335, 354, 433,
436, 577

United Nations, 283, 334, 338, 339, 533, 534

University rankings, 371

User-operated directory assistance, 392

Using Excel, 412

Voting machine, 507

Vowel word, 187

Water usage, 70

Weather beacon, 125

Word palindrome, 319

Mathematics
Areas of geometric shapes, 156

Average speed, 70

Binary search, 289

Birthday probability, 256, 272

Calculate a median, 333, 372

Calculate a range, 252, 283, 317

Calculate a spread, 597

Calculate a sum, 315, 316, 429

Calculate an average, 90, 138, 244, 270, 276, 303, 316, 319, 332, 333,
344, 372, 386, 567, 597

Calculate population densities, 354

Calculator, 110, 143, 583, 597

Coefficient of restitution, 251

Convert percentage to a decimal, 89

Convert speeds, 71

Convert temperatures, 251

Convert units of length, 93, 111, 385, 461

Curve grades, 386

Determine a special number, 272

Determine two largest numbers, 211

Error detection, 288

Factorial, 270

Factorization, 253

Find largest number, 267, 300, 429

Find smallest number, 252, 315, 429

Fraction calculator, 568, 578

Gas mileage, 70

Greatest Common Divisor, 252

Interesting algorithm, 240

ISBN codes, 386

Magic square, 375

Make change, 111, 138

Measurements on a square, 566, 578

Multiplication table, 261

Odometer readings, 272

Projectile motion, 70, 286

Quadratic equation, 176

Standard deviation, 283, 317, 386

Student grades, 488, 550, 555, 569, 587, 597

Sum a series, 267

Sum of digits, 272

 Surface area, 193

Sports and Games

Baseball, 89, 355, 438, 448, 451, 535–38

Blackjack, 601

Carnival game, 477

Dice, 477, 478, 566, 578

Famous athletes, 357, 358

Four-minute mile, 71

PGA Championship, 372

Pick-up-Sticks, 238

Poker, 389, 574

Powerball, 476

Rock-Paper-Scissors, 464, 590

Rose Bowl, 279, 280

Soccer league, 389

Super Bowl, 296, 297, 301, 332

Triathlon, 88

World Series of baseball, 509

Contents
1. Guide to VideoNotes iv

2. Guide to Application Topics v

3. Preface xii

4. MyProgrammingLab xvi

5. Acknowledgments xvii

6. Using this Book for a Short or Condensed Course xviii

1. Chapter 1 An Introduction to Computers and Problem Solving 1

1. 1.1 An Introduction to Computing and Visual Basic 2

2. 1.2 Program Development Cycle 5

3. 1.3 Programming Tools 7

2. Chapter 2 Visual Basic, Controls, and Events 15

1. 2.1 An Introduction to Visual Basic 2015 16

2. 2.2 Visual Basic Controls 18

3. 2.3 Visual Basic Events 37

1. Summary 52

3. Chapter 3 Variables, Input, and Output 53

1. 3.1 Numbers 54

2. 3.2 Strings 72
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
so we may look at, first, the plant life of this period; second, animal life on the
land; and third, animal life in the waters and in the ocean depths.
The Mesozoic shores were clothed with an abundant flora, which changed
considerably in its form during the lapse of this long time; but yet it has a
character of its own distinct from that of the previous Palæozoic and the
succeeding Tertiary. Perhaps no feature of this period is more characteristic
than the great abundance of those singular plants, the cycads, which in the
modern flora are placed near to the pines, but in their appearance and habit
more resemble palms, and which in the modern world are chiefly found in the
tropical and warm temperate zones of Asia and America. No plants certainly of
this order occur in the Carboniferous, where their nearest allies are perhaps
some of the Sigillarise; and in the modern time the cycads are not so
abundant, nor do they occur at all in climates where their predecessors appear
to have abounded. In the quarries of the island of Portland, we have a
remarkable evidence of this in beds with numerous stems of cycads still in situ
in the soil in which they grew, and associated with stumps of pines which
seem to have flourished along with them. In further illustration of this point, I
may refer to the fact that Carruthers, in a recent paper, catalogues twenty-five
British species belonging to eight genera—a fact which markedly characterizes
the British flora of the Mesozoic period. These plants will therefore occupy a
prominent place in our restoration of the Mesozoic landscape, and we should
give especial prominence to the beautiful species Williamsonia gigas,
discovered by the eminent botanist whose name it bears, and restored in his
paper on the plant in the “Linnæan Transactions.” These plants, with pines and
gigantic equisetums, prevailed greatly in the earlier Mesozoic flora, but as the
time wore on, various kinds of endogens, resembling the palms and the screw-
pines of the tropical islands, were introduced, and toward its close some
representatives of the exogens very like our ordinary trees. Among these we
find for the first time in our upward progress in the history of the earth,
species of our familiar oaks, figs, and walnut, along with some trees now
confined to Australia and the Cape of Good Hope, as the banksias and “silver-
trees,” and their allies. In America a large number of the genera of the modern
trees are present, and even some of those now peculiar to America, as the
tulip-trees and sweet-gums. These forests of the later Mesozoic must therefore
have been as gay with flowers and as beautiful in foliage as those of the
modern world, and there is evidence that they swarmed with insect life.
Further, the Mesozoic plants produced in some places beds of coal comparable
in value and thickness to those of the old coal formation. Of this kind are the
coal beds of Brora in Sutherlandshire, those of Richmond in Virginia, and Deep
River in N. Carolina, those of Vancouver’s Island, and a large part of those of
China. To the same age have been referred some at least of the coal beds of
Australia and India. So important are these beds in China, that had geology
originated in that country, the Mesozoic might have been our age of coal.
If the forests of the Mesozoic present a great advance over those of the
Palæozoic, so do the animals of the land, which now embrace all the great
types of vertebrate life. Some of these creatures have left strange evidence of
their existence in their footprints on the sand and clay, now cemented into
beds of hard rock excavated by the quarryman. If we had landed on some
wide muddy Mesozoic shore, we might have found it marked in all directions
with animal footprints. Some of these are shaped much like a human hand.
The creature that made this mark was a gigantic successor of the crocodilian
newts or labyrinthodonts of the Carboniferous, and this type seems to have
attained its maximum in this period, where one species, Labyrinthodon
giganteus, had great teeth three or four inches in length, and presenting in
their cross section the most complicated foldings of enamel imaginable. But
we may see on the shores still more remarkable footprints. They indicate
biped and three-toed animals of gigantic size, with a stride perhaps six feet in
length. Were they enormous birds? If so, the birds of this age must have been
giants which would dwarf even our ostriches. But as we walk along the shore
we see many other impressions, some of them much smaller and different in
form. Some, again, very similar in other respects, have four toes; and, more
wonderful still, in tracing up some of the tracks, we find that here and there
the creature has put down on the ground a sort of four-fingered hand, while
some of these animals seem to have trailed long tails behind them. What were
these portentous creatures—bird, beast, or reptile? The answer has been
given to us by their bones, as studied by Yon Meyer and Owen, and more
recently by Huxley and Cope. We thus have brought before us the Dinosaurs—
the terrible Saurians—of the Mesozoic age, the noblest of the Tanninim of old.
These creatures constitute numerous genera and species, some of gigantic
size, others comparatively small;—some harmless browsers on plants, others
terrible renders of living flesh; but all remarkable for presenting a higher type
of reptile organization than any now existing, and approaching in some
respects to the birds and in others to the mammalia. Let us take one example
of each of the principal groups. And first marches before us the Iguanodon or
his relation Hadrosaurus—a gigantic biped, twenty feet or more in height, with
enormous legs shaped like those of an ostrich, but of elephantine thickness. It
strides along, not by leaps like a kangaroo, but with slow and stately tread,
occasionally resting, and supporting itself on the tripod formed by its hind
limbs and a huge tail, like the inverted trunk of a tree. The upper part of its
body becomes small and slender, and its head, of diminutive size and mild
aspect, is furnished with teeth for munching the leaves and fruits of trees,
which it can easily reach with its small fore-limbs, or hands, as it walks
through the woods. The outward appearance of these creatures we do not
certainly know. It is not likely that they had bony plates like crocodiles, but
they may have shone resplendent in horny scale armour of varied hues. But
another and more dreadful form rises before us. It is Megalosaurus or perhaps
Lælaps. Here we have a creature of equally gigantic size and biped habits; but
it is much more agile, and runs with great swiftness or advances by huge
leaps, and its feet and hands are armed with strong curved claws; while its
mouth has a formidable armature of sharp-edged and pointed teeth. It is a
type of a group of biped bird-like lizards, the most terrible and formidable of
rapacious animals that the earth has ever seen. Some of these creatures, in
their short deep jaws and heads, resembled the great carnivorous mammals of
modern times, while all in the structure of their limbs had a strange and
grotesque resemblance to the birds. Nearly all naturalists regard them as
reptiles; but in their circulation and respiration they must have approached to
the mammalia, and their general habit of body recalls that of the kangaroos.
They were no doubt oviparous; and this, with their biped habit, seems to
explain the strong resemblance of their hind quarters to those of birds. Had
we seen the eagle-clawed Lælaps rushing on his prey; throwing his huge bulk
perhaps thirty feet through the air, and crushing to the earth under his gigantic
talons some feebler Hadrosaur, we should have shudderingly preferred the
companionship of modern wolves and tigers to that of those savage and
gigantic monsters of the Mesozoic.
We must not leave the great land-lizards of the reptilian age, without some
notice of that Goliath of the race which, by a singular misnomer, has received
the appellation of Ceteosaurus or “Whale-Saurian.” It was first introduced to
naturalists by the discovery of a few enormous vertebrae in the English Oolite;
and as these in size and form seemed best to fit an aquatic creature, it was
named in accordance with this view. But subsequent discoveries have shown
that, incredible though this at first appeared, the animal had limbs fitted for
walking on the land. Professor Phillips has been most successful in collecting
and restoring the remains of Ceteosaurus, and devotes to its history a long
and interesting section of his “Geology of Oxford.” The size of the animal may
be estimated, from the fact that its thigh-bone is sixty-four inches long, and
thick in proportion. From this and other fragments of the skeleton, we learn
that this huge monster must have stood ten feet high when on all fours, and
that its length, could not have been less than fifty feet; perhaps much more.
From a single tooth, which has been found, it seems to have been
herbivorous; and it was probably a sort of reptilian Hippopotamus, living on
the rich herbage by the sides of streams and marshes, and perhaps sometimes
taking to the water, where the strokes of its powerful tail would enable it to
move more rapidly than on the land. In structure, it seems to have been a
composite creature, resembling in many points the contemporary Dinosaurs;
but in others, approaching to the crocodiles and the lizards.
But the wonders of Mesozoic reptiles are not yet exhausted. While noticing
numerous crocodiles and lizard: like creatures, and several kinds of tortoises,
we are startled by what seems a flight of great bats, wheeling and screaming
overhead, pouncing on smaller creatures of their own kind, as hawks seize
sparrows and partridges, and perhaps diving into the sea for fish. These were
the Pterodactyles, the reptile bats of the Mesozoic. They fly by means of a
membrane stretched on a monstrously enlarged little finger, while the other
fingers of the fore limb are left free to be used as hands or feet. To move
these wings, they had large breast-muscles like those of birds. In their general
structure, they were lizards, but no doubt of far higher organization than any
animals of this order now living; and in accordance with this, the interior of
their skull shows that they must have had a brain comparable with that of
birds, which, they rivalled in energy and intelligence. Some of them were
larger than the largest modern birds of prey, others were like pigeons and
snipes in size. Specimens in the Cambridge Museum indicate one species
twenty feet in the expanse of its wings. Cope has recently described an equally
gigantic species from the Mesozoic of Western America, and fragments of
much larger species are said to exist.[AE] Imagine such a creature, a flying
dragon, with vast skinny wings, its body, perhaps, covered with scales, both
wings and feet armed with strong claws, and with long jaws furnished with
sharp teeth. Nothing can be conceived more strange and frightful. Some of
them had the hind limbs long, like wading birds. Some had short, legs,
adapted perhaps for perching. They could probably fold up their wings, and
walk on all fours. Their skeleton, like that of birds, was very light, yet strong;
and the hollow bones have pores, which show that, as in birds, air could be
introduced into them from the lungs. This proves a circulation resembling that
of birds, and warm blood. Indeed, in many respects, these creatures bridge
over the space between the birds and the reptiles. “That they lived,” says
Seeley, "exclusively upon land or in the air is improbable, considering the
circumstances under which their remains are found. It is likely that they
haunted the sea-shores; and while sometimes rowing themselves over the
water with their powerful wings, used the wing membrane, as does the bat, to
encloses the prey and bring it to the mouth. The large Pterodactyles probably
pursued a more substantial prey than dragon-flies. Their teeth were well
suited for fish; but probably fowl and small mammal, and even fruits, made a
variety in their food. As the lord of the cliff, it may be supposed to have taken
toll of all animals that could be conquered with tooth and nail. From its brain,
it might be regarded as an intelligent animal. The jaws present indications of
having been sheathed with a horny covering, and some species show a rugose
anterior termination of the snout, suggestive of fleshy lips like those of the
bat, and which may have been similarly used to stretch and clean the wing-
membrane."
[AE] Seeley: “Ornithosauria.”

Here, however, perched on the trees, we see true birds. At least they have
beaks, and are clothed with feathers. But they have very strange wings, the
feathers all secondaries, without any large quills, and several fingers with
claws at the angle of the wing, so that though less useful as wings, they
served the double purpose of wing and hand. More strange still, the tail was
long and flexible, like that of a lizard, with the feathers arranged in rows along
its sides. If the lizards of this strange and uncertain time had wings like bats,
the birds had tails and hands like lizards. This was in short the special age of
reptiles, when animals of that class usurped the powers which rightfully
belonged to creatures yet in their nonage, the true birds and mammals of our
modern days, while the birds were compelled to assume some reptilian traits.
Yet, strange to say, representatives of the higher creatures destined to
inherit the earth at a later date actually existed. Toward the close of the
Mesozoic we find birds approaching to those of our own day, and almost at the
beginning of the time there were small mammals, remains of which are found
both in the earlier and later formations of the Mesozoic, but which never seem
to have thriven; at least so far as the introduction of large and important
species is concerned. Traversing the Mesozoic woods, we might see here and
there little hairy creatures, which would strike a naturalist as allies of the
modern bandicoots, kangaroo rats, and myrmecobius of Australia; and closer
study would confirm this impression, though showing differences of detail. In
their teeth, their size, and general form, and probably in their pouched or
marsupial reproduction, these animals were early representatives of the
smaller quadrupeds of the Austral continent, creatures which are not only
small but of low organisation in their class.
One of these mammals, known to us only by its teeth, and well named
Microlestes, the “little thief” sneaks into existence, so to speak, in the Trias of
Europe, while another very similar, Dromatherium, appears in rocks of similar
age in America; and this is the small beginning of the great class Mammalia,
destined in its quadrupedal forms to culminate in the elephants and their
contemporaries in the Tertiary period. Who that saw them trodden under foot
lay the reptile aristocracy of the Mesozoic could have divined their destiny?
But, notwithstanding the struggle for existence, the weakest does not always
“go to the wall.” The weak things of this world are often chosen to confound
those that are mighty; and the little quadrupeds of the Mesozoic are an
allegory. They may typify the true, the good, and the hopeful, mildly and
humbly asserting themselves in the world that now is, in the presence of the
dragon monsters of pride and violence, which in the days to come they will
overthrow. Physically the Mesozoic has passed away, but still exists morally in
an age of evil reptiles, whose end is as certain as that of the great Dinosaurs
of the old world.
The Mesozoic mammals are among the most interesting fossils known to
us. In a recent memoir by Professor Owen, thirty-three species are indicated—
all, or nearly all, Marsupial—all small—all closely allied to modern Australian
animals; some herbivorous, some probably carnivorous. Owen informs us that
these animals are not merely marsupials, but marsupials of low grade, a point
in which, however, Huxley differs somewhat in opinion. They are at least not
lower than some that still exist, and not so low as those lowest of mammals in
Modern Australia, the duck-billed platypus and the echidna. Owen further
supposes that they were possibly the first mammals, and not only the
predecessors but the progenitors of the modern marsupials. If so, we have the
singular fact that they not only did not improve throughout the vast Mesozoic
time, but that they have been in the progress of subsequent geological ages
expelled out of the great eastern continent, and, with the exception of the
American opossums, banished, like convicts, to Australia. Yet, notwithstanding
their multiplied travels and long experiences, they have made little advance. It
thus seems that the Mesozoic mammals were, from the evolutionist point of
view, a decided failure, and the work of introducing mammals had to be done
over again in the Tertiary; and then, as we shall find, in a very different way. If
nothing more, however, the Mesozoic mammals were a mute prophecy of a
better time, a protest that the age of reptiles was an imperfect age, and that
better things were in store for the world. Moses seems to have been more
hopeful of them than Owen or even Huxley would have been. He says that
God “created” the great Tanninim, the Dinosaurs and their allies, but only
“made” the mammals of the following creative day; so that when Microlestes
and his companions quietly and unnoticed presented themselves in the
Mesozoic, they would appear in some way to have obviated, in the case of the
tertiary mammals, the necessity of a repetition of the greater intervention
implied in the word “create.” How that was effected none of us know; but,
perhaps, we may know hereafter.
 CHAPTER IX.

THE MESOZOIC AGES (continued).

The waters of the Mesozoic period present features quite as remarkable as
the land. In our survey of their teeming multitudes, we indeed scarcely know
where to begin or whither to turn. Let us look first at the higher or more noble
inhabitants of the waters. And here, just as in the case of the greater animals
of the land, the Mesozoic was emphatically an age of reptiles. In the modern
world the highest animals the sea are mammals, and these belong to three
great and somewhat diverse groups. The first is that of the seals and their
allies, the walruses, sea-lions, etc. The second is that of the whales and
dolphins and porpoises. The third is that of the manatees, or dugongs. All
these creatures breathe air, and bring forth their young alive, and nourish
them with milk. Yet they all live habitually or constantly in the water. Between
these aquatic mammals and the fishes, we have some aquatic reptiles as the
turtles, and a few sea-snakes and sea-lizards, and crocodiles; but the number
of these is comparatively small, and in the more temperate latitudes there are
scarcely any of them.
All this was different in the Mesozoic. In so far as we know, there were no
representatives of the seals and whales and their allies, but there were vast
numbers of marine reptiles, and many of these of gigantic size. Britain at
present does not possess one large reptile, and no marine reptile whatever. In
the Mesozoic, in addition to the great Dinosaurs and Pterodactyls of the land,
it had at least fifty or sixty species of aquatic reptiles, besides many turtles.
Some of these were comparable in size with our modern whales, and armed
with tremendous powers of destruction. America is not relatively rich in
remains of Mesozoic Saurians, yet while the existing fauna of the temperate
parts of North America is nearly destitute of aquatic reptiles, with the
exception of the turtles, it can boast, according to Cope’s lists, about fifty
Mesozoic species, many of them of gigantic size, and the number of known
species is increasing every year When it is taken in connection with these
statistics, that while we know all the modern species, we know but a small
percentage of the fossils, the discrepancy becomes still more startling. Further,
from the number of specimens and fragments found, it is obvious that these
great aquatic saurians were by no means rare; and that some of the species at
least must have been very abundant. Could we have taken our post on the
Mesozoic shore, or sailed over its waters, we should have found ourselves in
the midst of swarms of these strange, often hideous, and always grotesque
creatures.
Let us consider for a little some of the more conspicuous forms, referring to
our illustration for their portraits. Every text-book figures the well-known types
of the genera Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus; we need scarcely, therefore,
dwell on them, except to state that the catalogues of British fossils include
eleven species of the former genus and eighteen of the latter, We may,
however, notice some of the less familiar points of comparison of the two
genera. Both were aquatic, and probably marine. Both swam by means of
paddles; both were carnivorous, and probably fed principally upon fishes; both
were proper reptiles, and breathed air, and had large and capacious lungs. Yet
with these points in common, no two animals could have been more different
in detail. The Ichthyosaurus had an enormous head, with powerful jaws,
furnished with numerous and strong teeth. Its great eyes, strengthened by a
circle of bony plates, exceeded in dimensions, and probably in power of vision
under water, those of any other animal, recent or fossil. Its neck was short, its
trunk massive, with paddles or swimming limbs of comparatively small size,
and a long tail, probably furnished with a caudal fin or paddle for propulsion
through the water. The Plesiosaur, on the other hand, had a small and delicate
head, with slender teeth and small eyes. Its neck, of great length and with
numerous joints, resembled the body of a serpent. Its trunk, short, compact,
and inflexible, was furnished with large and strong paddles, and its tail was
too short to be of any service except for steering. Compared with the
Ichthyosaur, it was what the giraffe is to the rhinoceros, or the swan to the
porpoise. Two fishermen so variously and differently fitted for their work it
would be difficult to imagine. But these differences were obviously related to
corresponding differences in food and habit. The Ichthyosaur was fitted to
struggle with the waves of the stormy sea, to roll therein like modern whales
and grampuses, to seize and devour great fishes, and to dive for them into the
depths; and its great armour-plated eyes must have been well adapted for
vision in the deeper waters. The Plesiosaur, on the contrary, was fitted for
comparatively still and shallow waters; swimming near the surface with its
graceful neck curving aloft, it could dart at the smaller fishes on the surface,
or stretch its long neck downward in search of those near the bottom. The
Ichthyosaurs rolled like porpoises in the surf of the Liassic coral reefs and the
waves beyond; the Plesiosaurs careered gracefully in the quiet waters within.
Both had their beginning at the same time in the earlier Mesozoic, and both
found a common and final grave in its later sediments. Some of the species
were of very moderate size, but there were Ichthyosaurs twenty five feet long,
and Plesiosaurs at least eighteen feet in length.
Another strange and monstrous group of creatures, the Elasmosaurs and
their allies, combined the long neck of Plesiosaurs with the swimming tail of
Ichthyosaurs, the latter enormously elongated, so that these Creatures were
sometimes fifty feet in length, and whale-like in the dimensions of their bodies.
It is curious that these composite creatures belong to a later period of the
Mesozoic than the typical Ichthyosaurs and Plesiosaurs, as if the characters at
one time separated in these genera had united in their successors.
One of the relatives of the Plesiosaurs, the Pliosaur, of which genus several
species of great size are known perhaps realized in the highest degree possible
the idea of a huge marine predaceous reptile. The head in some of the species
was eight feet in length, armed with conical teeth a foot long. The neck was
not only long, but massive and powerful, the paddles, four in number, were six
or seven feet in length and must have urged the vast bulk of the animal,
perhaps forty feet in extent, through the water with prodigious speed. The
capacious chest and great ribs show a powerful heart and lungs. Imagine such
a creature raising its huge head twelve feet or more out of water, and rushing
after its prey, impelled with perhaps the most powerful oars ever possessed by
any animal. We may be thankful that such monsters, more terrible than even
the fabled sea-serpent, are unknown in our days. Buckland, I think, at one
time indulged in the jeu d’esprit of supposing an Ichthyosaur lecturing on the
human skull. “You will at once perceive,” said the lecturer, “that the skull
before us belonged to one of the lower orders of animals. The teeth are very
insignificant, the power of the jaws trifling, and altogether it seems wonderful
how the creature could have procured food.” We cannot retort on the
Ichthyosaur and his contemporaries, for we can see that they were admirably
fitted for the work they had in hand; but we can see that had man been so
unfortunate as to have lived in their days, he might have been anything but
the lord of creation.
But there were sea-serpents as well as other monsters in the Mesozoic
seas. Many years ago the Lower Cretaceous beds of St. Peter’s Mount, near
Maestricht, afforded a skull three feet in length, of massive proportions, and
furnished with strong conical teeth, to which the name Mosasaurus Camperi
was given. The skull and other parts of the skeleton found with it, were held to
indicate a large aquatic reptile, but its precise position in its class was long a
subject of dispute. Faujas held it to be a crocodile; Camper, Cuvier, and Owen
regarded it as a gigantic lizard. More recently, additional specimens, especially
those found in the Cretaceous formations of North America, have thrown new
light upon its structure, and have shown it to present a singular combination
of the character of serpents, lizards, and of the great sea saurians already
referred to. Some parts of the head and the articulation of the jaws, in
important points resemble those of serpents, while in other respects the head
is that of a gigantic lizard. The body and tail are greatly lengthened out,
having more than a hundred vertebral joints, and in one of the larger species
attaining the length of eighty feet. The trunk itself is much elongated, and with
ribs like those of a snake. There are no walking feet, but a pair of fins or
paddles like those of Ichthyosaurus. Cope, who has described these great
creatures as they occur in the Cretaceous of the United States, thus sketches
the Mosasaur: “It was a long and slender reptile, with a pair of powerful
paddles in front, a moderately long neck, and flat pointed head. The very long
tail was flat and deep, like that of a great eel, forming a powerful propeller.
The arches of the vertebral column were more extensively interlocked than in
any other reptiles except the snakes. In the related genus Clidastes this
structure is as fully developed as in the serpents, so that we can picture to
ourselves its well-known consequences; their rapid progress through the water
by lateral undulations, their lithe motions on the land, the rapid stroke, the
ready coil, or the elevation of the head and vertebral column, literally a living
pillar, towering above the waves or the thickets of the shore swamps.” As in
serpents, the mouth was wide in its gape, and the lower jaw capable of a
certain separation from the skull to admit of swallowing large prey. Besides
this the lower jaw had an additional peculiarity, seen in some snakes, namely,
a joint in the middle of the jaw enabling its sides to expand, so that the food
might be swallowed “between the branches of the jaw.” Perhaps no creatures
more fully realize in their enormous length and terrible powers the great
Tanninim (the stretched-out or extended reptiles) of the fifth day of the Mosaic
record, than the Mosasaurus and Elasmosaurus. When Mr. Cope showed me, a
few years ago, a nearly complete skeleton of Elasmosaurus, which for want of
space he had stretched on a gallery along two sides of a large room, I could
not help suggesting to him that the name of the creature should be
Teinosaurus[AF] instead of that which he had given. Marsh has recently
ascertained that the Mosasaurs were covered in part at least with bony scales.
[AF] Heb. Tanan; Gr. Teino, Tanuo; Sansc. Tanu; Lat. Tendo.—Ges. Lex.
 LIFE IN THE MESOZOIC PERIOD.
Aquatic Reptiles and Cephalopods. Reptiles.—Plesiosaur and Osteopygis,
Ichthyosaur, Teliosaur, Plesiosaur, Elasmosaur, Mosasaur (in order of the
heads from left to right).—Cephalopods.—Ammonite, Crioceras,
Belemnites, Baculites, and Ammonites (in order from left to right). The
Reptiles after Hawkins and Cope’s Restorations.
These animals may serve as specimens of the reptilian giants of the
Mesozoic seas; but before leaving them we must at least invite attention to the
remarkable fact that they were contemporary with species which represent the
more common aquatic reptiles of the modern world. In other words, the
monsters which we have described existed over and above a far more
abundant population of crocodiles and turtles than the modern waters can
boast. The crocodiles were represented both in Europe and America by
numerous and large species, most of them with long snouts like the modern
Gavials, a few with broad heads like those of the alligators. The turtles again
presented not only many species, but most of the aquatic subdivisions of the
group known in modern times, as for instance the Emydes or ordinary fresh-
water forms, the snapping turtles, and the soft-shelled turtles. Cope says that
the Cretaceous of New Jersey alone affords twenty species, one of them a
snapping turtle six feet in length. Owen records above a dozen large species
from the Upper Mesozoic of England, and dates the first appearance of the
turtles in England about the time of the Portland stone, or in the upper half of
the Mesozoic; but footprints supposed to be those of turtles are found as far
back as the Trias. Perhaps no type of modern reptiles is more curiously
specialized than these animals, yet we thus find them contemporaneous with
many generalized types, and entering into existence perhaps as soon as they.
The turtles did not culminate in the Mesozoic, but go on to be represented by
more numerous and larger species in the Tertiary and Modern. In the case of
the crocodiles, while they attained perhaps a maximum toward the end of the
Mesozoic, it was in a peculiar form. The crocodiles of this old time had
vertebrae with a hollow at each end like the fishes, or with a projection in the
front. At the end of the Mesozoic this was changed, and they assumed a
better-knit back, with joints having a ball behind and a socket in front. In the
Cretaceous age, species having these two kinds of backbone were
contemporaneous. Perhaps this improvement in the crocodilian back had
something to do with the persistence of this type after so many others of the
sea-lizards of the Mesozoic had passed away.
Of the fishes of the Mesozoic we need only say that they were very
abundant, and consisted of sharks and ganoids of various types, until near the
close of the period, when the ordinary horny-scaled fishes, such as abound in
our present seas, appear to have been introduced. One curious point of
difference is that the unequally lobed tail of the Palæozoic fishes is dropped in
the case of the greater part of the ganoids, and replaced by the squarely-cut
tail prevalent in modern times.
In the sub-kingdom of the Mollusca many important revolutions occurred.
Among the lamp-shells a little Leptaena, no bigger than a pea, is the last and
depauperated representative of a great Palæozoic family. Another, that of the
Spirifers, still shows a few species in the Lower Mesozoic. Others, like
Rhynchonella, and Terebratula, continue through the period, and extend into
the Modern. Passing over the ordinary bivalves and sea-snails, which in the
main conform to those of our own time, we find perhaps the most wonderful
changes among the relatives of the cuttle-fishes and Nautili. As far back as the
Silurian we find the giant Orthoceratites contemporary with Nautili, very like
those of the present ocean. With the close of the Palæozoic, however, the
Orthoceratites and their allies disappear, while the Nautili continue, and are
reinforced by multitudes of new forms of spiral chambered shells, some of
them more wonderful and beautiful than any of those which either preceded
or followed them. Supreme among these is the great group of the Ammonites,
—beautifully spiral shells, thin and pearly like the Nautilus, and chambered like
it, so as to serve as a float, but far more elaborately constructed, inasmuch as
the chambers were not simply curved, but crimped and convoluted, so as to
give the outer wall much more effectual support. This outer wall, too, was
worked into ornamental ribs and bands, which not only gave it exquisite
beauty, but contributed to combine strength to resist pressure with the
lightness necessary to a float. In some of these points it is true the Gyroceras
and Goniatites of the Palæozoic partially anticipated them, but much less
perfectly. The animals which inhabited these shells must have been similar to
that of Nautilus, but somewhat different in the proportion of parts. They must
have had the same power of rising and sinking in the water, but the
mechanical construction of their shells was so much more perfect relatively to
this end, that they were probably more active and locomotive than the Nautili.
They must have swarmed in the Mesozoic seas, some beds of limestone and
shale being filled with them; and as many as eight hundred species of this
family are believed to be known, including, however, such forms as the
Baculites or straight Ammonites, bearing to them perhaps a relation similar to
that of Orthoceras to Nautilus. Further, some of the Ammonites are of gigantic
size, one species being three feet in diameter, while others are very minute.
The whole family of Ammonitids, which begins to be in force in the Trias,
disappears at the end of the Mesozoic, so that this may be called the special
age of Ammonites as well as of reptiles.
Further, this time was likewise distinguished by the introduction of true
cuttle-fishes, the most remarkable of which were those furnished with the
internal supports or “bones,” known as Belemnites, from a fancied
resemblance to javelins or thunder-bolts, a comparison at least as baseless as
that often made in England of the Ammonites to fossil snakes. The shell of the
Belemnite is a most curious structure. Its usual general shape is a pointed
cylinder or elongated cone. At top it has a deep cavity for the reception of
certain of the viscera of the animal. Below this is a conical series of chambers,
the Phragmacone; and the lower half of the shell is composed of a solid shelly
mass or guard, which, in its structure of radiating fibres and concentric layers,
resembles a stalactite, or a petrified piece of exogenous wood. This structure
was an internal shell or support like those of the modern cuttle-fishes; but it is
difficult to account for its peculiarities, so much more complex than in any
existing species. The most rational supposition seems to be that it was
intended to serve the triple purpose of a support, a float, and a sinker. Unlike
the shell of a Nautilus, if thrown into the water it would no doubt have, sunk,
and with the pointed end first. Consequently, it was not a float simply, but a
float and sinker combined, and its effect must have been to keep the animal at
the bottom, with its head upward. The Belemnite was therefore an exceptional
cuttle-fish, intended to stand erect on the sea-bottom and probably to dart
upward in search of its prey; for the suckers and hooks with which its arms
were furnished show that, like other cuttle-fishes, it was carnivorous and
predaceous. The guard may have been less ponderous when recent than in
the fossil specimens, and in some species it was of small size or slender, and in
others it was hollow. Possibly, also, the soft tissues of the animal were not
dense, and it may have had swimming fins at the sides. In any case they must
have been active creatures, and no doubt could dart backward by expelling
water from their gill chamber, while we know that they had ink-bags, provided
with that wonderfully divided pigment, inimitable by art, with which the
modern Sepia darkens the water to shelter itself from its enemies. The
Belemnites must have swarmed in the Mesozoic seas; and as squids and
cuttles now afford choice morsels to the larger fishes, so did the Belemnites in
their day. There is evidence that even the great sea-lizards did not disdain to
feed on them. We can imagine a great shoal of these creatures darting up and
down, seizing with their ten hooked arms their finny or crustacean prey. In an
instant a great fish or saurian darts down among them; they blacken the water
with a thick cloud of inky secretion and disperse on all sides, while their
enemy, blindly seizing a few mouthfuls, returns sullenly to the surface. A great
number of species of Belemnites and allied animals have been described; but
it is probable that in naming them too little regard has been paid to
distinctions of age and sex. The Belemnites were for the most part small
creatures; but there is evidence that there existed with them some larger and
more formidable cuttles; and it is worthy of note that, in several of these, the
arms, as in the Belemnites, were furnished with hooks as well as suckers, an
exceptional arrangement in their modern allies. It is probable that while the
four-gilled or shell-bearing cuttles culminated in size and perfection in the
Ammonitids of the Mesozoic, the modern cuttles of the two-gilled and shell-
less type are grander in dimensions than their Mesozoic predecessors. It is,
however, not a little singular that a group so peculiar and apparently so well
provided with means, both of offence and defence, as the Belemnites, should
come in and go out with the Mesozoic, and that the Nautiloid group, after
attaining to the magnitude and complexity of the great Ammonites, should
retreat to a few species of diminutive and simply-constructed Nautili; and in
doing so should return to one of the old types dating as far back as the older
Palæozoic, and continuing unchanged through all the intervening time.
The Crustaceans of the Mesozoic had lost all the antique peculiarities of the
older time, and had so much of the aspect of those of the present day, that an
ordinary observer, if he could be shown a quantity of Jurassic or Cretaceous
crabs, lobsters, and shrimps, would not readily recognise the difference, which
did not exceed what occurs in distant geographical regions in the present day.
The same remark may be made as to the corals of the Mesozoic; and with
some limitations, as to the star-fishes and sea-urchins, which latter are
especially numerous and varied in the Cretaceous age. In short, all the
invertebrate forms of life, and the fishes and reptiles among the vertebrates,
had already attained their maximum elevation in the Mesozoic; and some of
them have subsequently sunk considerably in absolute as well as relative
importance.
In the course of the Mesozoic, as indicated in the last chapter, there had
been several great depressions and re-elevations of the Continental Areas. But
these had been of the same quiet and partial character with those of the
Palæozoic, and it was not until the close of the Mesozoic time, in the
Cretaceous age, that a great and exceptional subsidence involved for a long
period the areas of our present continents in a submergence wider and deeper
than any that had previously occurred since the dry land first rose out of the
waters.
Every one knows the great chalk beds which appear in the south of
England, and which have given its name to the latest age of the Mesozoic.
This great deposit of light-coloured and usually soft calcareous matter attains
in some places to the enormous thickness of 1,000 feet. Nor is it limited in
extent. According to Lyell, its European distribution is from Ireland to the
Crimea, a distance of 1,140 geographical miles; and from the south of France
to Sweden, a distance of 840 geographical miles. Similar rocks, though not in
all cases of the precise nature of chalk, occur extensively in Asia and in Africa,
and also in North and South America.
But what is chalk? It was, though one of the most familiar, one of the most
inscrutable of rocks, until the microscope revealed its structure. The softer
varieties, gently grated or kneaded down in water, or the harder varieties cut
in thin slices, show a congeries of microscopic chambered shells belonging to
the humble and simple group of Protozoa. These shells and their fragments
constitute the material of the ordinary chalk. With these are numerous spicules
of sponges and silicious cell-walls of the minute one-celled plants called
Diatoms. Further, the flinty matter of these organisms has by the law of
molecular attraction been collected into concretions, which are the flints of the
chalk. Such a rock is necessarily oceanic; but more than this, it is abyssal.
Laborious dredging has shown that similar matter is now being formed only in
the deep bed of the ocean, whither no sand or mud is drifted from the land,
and where the countless hosts of microscopic shell-bearing protozoa
continually drop their little skeletons on the bottom, slowly accumulating a
chalky mud or slime. That such a rock should occur over vast areas of the
continental plateaus, that both in Europe and America it should be found to
cover the tops of hills several thousand feet high, and that its thickness should
amount to several hundreds of feet, are facts which evidence a revolution
more stupendous perhaps than that at the close of the Palæozoic. For the first
time since the Laurentian, the great continental plateaus changed places with
the abysses of the ocean, and the successors of the Laurentian Eozoon again
reigned on surfaces which through the whole lapse of Palæozoic and Mesozoic
time had been separated more or less from that deep ocean out of which they
rose at first. This great Cretaceous subsidence was different from the
disturbances of the Permian age. There was at first no crumpling of the crust,
but merely a slow and long-continued sinking of the land areas, followed,
however, by crumpling of the most stupendous character, which led at the
close of the Cretaceous and in the earlier Tertiary to the formation of what are
now the greatest mountain chains in the world. As examples may be
mentioned the Himalaya, the Andes, and the Alps, on all which the deep-sea
beds of the Cretaceous are seen at great elevations. In Europe this depression
was almost universal, only very limited areas remaining out of water. In
America a large tract remained above water in the region of the Appalachians.
This gives us some clue to the phenomena. The great Permian collapse led to
the crumpling-up of the Appalachians and the Urals, and the older hills of
Western Europe. The Cretaceous collapse led to the crumpling of the great
N.W. and S.E. chain of the Rocky Mountains and Andes, and to that of the east
and west chains of the south of Asia and Europe. The cause was probably in
both cases the same; but the crust gave way in a different part, and owing to
this there was a greater amount of submergence of our familiar continental
plateaus in the Cretaceous than in the Permian.
Another remarkable indication of the nature of the Cretaceous subsidence,
is the occurrence of beds filled with grains of the mineral Glauconite or “green-
sand.” These grains are not properly sand, but little concretions, which form in
the bottom of the deep sea, often filling and taking casts of the interior and
fine tubes of Foraminiferal shells. Now this Glauconite, a hydrous silicate of
iron and potash, is akin to similar materials found filling the pores of fossils in
Silurian beds. It is also akin to the Serpentine filling the pores of Eozoon in the
Laurentian. Such materials are formed only in the deeper parts of the ocean,
and apparently most abundantly where currents of warm water are flowing at
the surface, as in the area of the Gulf Stream. Thus, not only in the prevalence
of Foraminifera, but in the formation of hydrous silicates, does the Cretaceous
recall the Laurentian. Such materials had no doubt been forming, and such
animals living in the ocean depths, all through the intervening ages, but with
the exception of a few and merely local instances, we know nothing of them,
till the great subsidence and re-elevation of the Cretaceous again allows them
to ascend to the continental plateaus, and again introduces us to this branch
of the world-making process.
The attention recently drawn to these facts by the researches of Dr.
Carpenter and others, and especially the similarity in mineral character and
organic remains of some of the deposits now forming in the Atlantic and those
of the chalk, have caused it to be affirmed that in the bed of the Atlantic these
conditions of life and deposit have continued from the Cretaceous up to the
present time, or as it has been expressed, that “we are still living in the
Cretaceous epoch.” Now, this is true or false just as we apply the statement.
We have seen that the distinction between abyssal areas, continental oceanic
plateaus, and land surfaces has extended through the whole lapse of
geological time. In this broad sense we may be said to be still living in the
Laurentian epoch. In other words, the whole plan of the earth’s development
is one and the same, and each class of general condition once introduced is
permanent somewhere. But in another important sense we are not living in
the Cretaceous epoch; otherwise the present site of London would be a
thousand fathoms deep in the ocean; the Ichthyosaurs and Ammonites would
be disporting themselves in the water, and the huge Dinosaurs and strange
Pterodactyls living on the land. The Italian peasant is still in many important
points living in the period of the old Roman Empire. The Arab of the desert
remains in the Patriarchal period, and there are some tribes not yet beyond
the primitive age of stone. But the world moves, nevertheless, and the era of
Victoria is not that of the Plantagenets or of Julius Cæsar. So while we may
admit that certain of the conditions of the Cretaceous seas still prevail in the
bed of the present ocean, we must maintain that nearly all else is changed,
and that the very existence of the partial similarity is of itself the most
conclusive proof of the general want of resemblance, and of the thorough
character of the changes which have occurred.
The duration of the Cretaceous subsidence must have been very great. We
do not know the rate at which the Foraminifera accumulate calcareous mud. In
some places, where currents heap up their shells, they may be gathered
rapidly; but on the average of the ocean bed, afoot of such material must
indicate the lapse of ages very long when compared with those of modern
history. We need not wonder, therefore, that while some forms of deep-sea
Cretaceous life, especially of the lower grades, seem to have continued to our
time, the inhabitants of the shallow waters and the land have perished; and
that the Neozoic or Tertiary period introduces us to a new world of living
beings. I say we need not wonder; yet there is no reason why we should
expect this as a necessary consequence. As the Cretaceous deluge rose over
the continents of the Mesozoic, the great sea saurians might have followed.
Those of the land might have retreated to the tracts still remaining out of
water, and when the dry land again appeared in the earlier Tertiary, they might
again have replenished the earth, and we might thus have truly been living in
the Reptilian age up to this day. But it was not so. The old world again
perished, and the dawn of the Tertiary shows to us at once the dynasties of
the Mammalian age, which was to culminate in the introduction of man. With
the great Cretaceous subsidence the curtain falls upon the age of reptiles, and
when it rises again, after the vast interval occupied in the deposition of the
green-sand and chalk, the scene has entirely changed. There are new
mountains and new plains, forests of different type, and animals such as no
previous age had seen.
How strange and inexplicable is this perishing of types in the geological
ages! Some we could well spare. We would not wish to have our coasts
infested by terrible sea saurians, or our forests by carnivorous Dinosaurs. Yet
why should these tyrants of creation so utterly disappear without waiting for
us to make war on them? Other types we mourn. How glorious would the
hundreds of species of Ammonites have shone in the cases of our museums,
had they still lived! What images of beauty would they have afforded to the
poets who have made so much of the comparatively humble Nautilus! How
perfectly, too, were they furnished with all those mechanical appliances for
their ocean life, which are bestowed only with a niggardly hand on their
successors! Nature gives us no explanation of the mystery.
“From scarped cliff and quarried stone,
She cries—‘A thousand types are gone.’”
But why or how one was taken and another left she is silent, and I believe
must continue to be so, because the causes, whether efficient or final, are
beyond her sphere. If we wish for a full explanation, we must leave Nature,
and ascend to the higher domain of the Spiritual.
 Click on table to view larger version.

CHAPTER X.

THE NEOZOIC AGES.

Between the Mesozoic and the next succeeding time which may be known
as the Neozoic or Tertiary,[AG] there is in the arrangements of most geologists
a great break in the succession of life; and undoubtedly the widespread and
deep subsidence of the Cretaceous, followed by the elevation of land on a
great scale at the beginning of the next period, is a physical cause sufficient to
account for vast life changes. Yet we must not forget to consider that even in
the Cretaceous itself there were new features beginning to appear. Let us note
in this way, in the first place, the introduction of the familiar generic forms of
exogenous trees. Next we may mention the decided prevalence of the modern
types of coral animals and of a great number of modern generic forms of
mollusks. Then we have the establishment of the modern tribes of lobsters
and crabs, and the appearance of nearly all the orders of insects. Among
vertebrates, the ordinary fishes are now introduced. Modern orders of reptiles,
as the crocodiles and chelonians, had already appeared, and the first
mammals. Henceforth the progress of organic nature lies chiefly in the
dropping of many Mesozoic forms and in the introduction of the higher tribes
of mammals and of man.
[AG] The former name is related to Palæozoic and Mesozoic, the latter
to the older terms Primary and Secondary. For the sake of euphony we
shall use both. The term Neozoic was proposed by Edward Forbes for the
Mesozoic and Cainozoic combined; but I use it here as a more euphonious
and accurate term for the Cainozoic alone.

It is further to be observed that the new things introduced in the later

Mesozoic came in little by little in the progress of the period, and anticipated
the great physical changes occurring at its close. On the other hand, while
many family and even generic types pass over from the Mesozoic to the earlier
Tertiary, very few species do so. It would seem, therefore, as if changes of
species were more strictly subordinate to physical revolutions than were
changes of genera and orders—these last overriding under different specific
forms many minor vicissitudes, and only in part being overwhelmed in the
grander revolutions of the earth.
Both in Europe and America there is evidence of great changes of level at
the beginning of the Tertiary. In the west of Europe beds often of shallow-
water or even fresh-water origin fill the hollows in the bent Cretaceous strata.
This is manifestly the case with the formations of the London and Paris basins,
contemporaneous but detached deposits of the Tertiary age, lying in
depressions of the chalk. Still this does not imply much want of conformity,
and according to the best explorers of those Alpine regions in which both the
Mesozoic and Tertiary beds have been thrown up to great elevations, they are
in the main conformable to one another. Something of the same kind occurs in
America. On the Atlantic coast the marine beds of the Older Tertiary cover the
Cretaceous, and little elevation seems to have occurred Farther west the
elevation increases, and in the upper part of the valley of the Mississippi it
amounts to 1700 feet. Still farther west, in the region of the Rocky Mountains,
there is evidence of elevation to the extent of as much as 7000 feet.
Throughout all these regions scarcely any disturbance of the old Cretaceous
sea-bottom seems to have occurred until after the deposition of the older
Tertiary, so that there was first a slow and general elevation of the Cretaceous
ocean bottom, succeeded by gigantic folds and fractures, and extensive
extravasations of the bowels of the earth in molten rocks, in the course of the
succeeding Tertiary age. These great physical changes inaugurated the new
and higher life of the Tertiary, just as the similar changes in the Permian did
that of the Mesozoic.
The beginning of these movements consisted of a great and gradual
elevation of the northern parts of both the Old and New Continents out of the
sea, whereby a much greater land surface was produced, and such changes of
depth and direction of currents in the ocean as must have very much modified
the conditions of marine life. The effect of all these changes in the aggregate
was to cause a more varied and variable climate, and to convert vast areas
previously tenanted by marine animals into the abodes of animals and plants
of the land, and of estuaries, lakes, and shallow waters. Still, however, very
large areas now continental were under the sea. As the Tertiary period
advanced, these latter areas were elevated, and in many cases were folded up
into high mountains. This produced further changes of climate and habitat of
animals, and finally brought our continents into all the variety of surface which
they now present, and which fits them so well for the habitation of the higher
animals and of man.
The thoughtful reader will observe that it follows from the above
statements that the partial distribution and diversity in different localities which
apply to the deposits of such ages as the Permian and the Trias apply also to
the earlier Tertiary; and as the continents, notwithstanding some dips under
water, have retained their present forms since the beginning of the Tertiary, it
follows that these beds are more definitely related to existing geographical
conditions than are those of the older periods, and that the more extensive
marine deposits of the Tertiary are, to a great extent, unknown to us. This has
naturally led to some difficulty in the classification of Neozoic deposits—those
of some of the Tertiary ages being very patchy and irregular, while others
spread very widely. In consequence of this, Sir Charles Lyell, to whom we owe
very much of our definite knowledge of this period, has proposed a subdivision
based on the percentage of recent and fossil animals. In other words, he takes
it for granted that a deposit which contains more numerous species of animals
still living than another, may be judged on that account to be more recent.
Such a mode of estimation is, no doubt, to some extent arbitrary; but in the
main, when it can be tested by the superposition of deposits, it has proved
itself reliable. Further, it brings before us this remarkable fact, that while in the
older periods all the animals whose remains we find are extinct as species, so
soon as we enter on the Neozoic we find some which still continue to our time
—at first only a very few, but in later and later beds in gradually increasing
percentage, till the fossil and extinct wholly disappear in the recent and living.
 The Lyellian classification of the Tertiary will therefore stand as in the
following table, bearing in mind that the percentage of fossils is taken from
marine forms, and mainly from mollusks, and that the system has in some
cases been modified by stratigraphical evidence:—

Post-pliocene, including that which

immediately precedes the
Modern. In this the shells, etc.,
are recent, the Mammalia in
part extinct.
Pliocene, or more recent age. In
Tertiary, this the majority of shells
or found are recent in the upper
Neozoic beds. In the lower beds the
Time. extinct become predominant.
Miocene, or less recent. In this the
large majority of shells found
are extinct.
Eocene, the dawn of the recent. In
this only a few recent shells
occur.

If we attempt to divide the Tertiary time into ages corresponding to those

of the older times, we are met by the difficulty that as the continents have
retained their present forms and characters to a great extent throughout this
time, we fail to find those evidences of long-continued submergences of the
whole continental plateaus, or very large portions of them, which we have
found so very valuable in the Palæozoic and Mesozoic. In the Eocene,
however, we shall discover one very instructive case in the great Nummulitic
Limestone. In the Miocene and Pliocene the oscillations seem to have been
slight and partial. In the Post-pliocene we have the great subsidence of the
glacial drift; but that seems to have been a comparatively rapid dip, though of
long duration when measured by human history; not allowing time for the
formation of great limestones, but only of fossiliferous sands and clays, which
require comparatively short time for their deposition If then we ask as to the
duration of the Neozoic, I answer that we have not a definite measure of its
ages, if it had any; and that it is possible that the Neozoic may have as yet
had but one age, which closed with the great drift period, and that we are
now only in the beginning of its second age. Some geologists, impressed with
this comparative shortness of the Tertiary, connect it with Mesozoic, grouping
both together. This, however, is obviously unnatural. The Mesozoic time
certainly terminated with the Cretaceous, and what follows belongs to a
distinct aeon.
But we must now try to paint the character of this new and peculiar time;
and this may perhaps be best done in the following sketches: 1. The seas of
the Eocene. 2. Mammals from the Eocene to the Modern. 3. Tertiary floras. 4.
The Glacial period. 5. The Advent of Man.
The great elevation of the continents which closed the Cretaceous was
followed by a partial and unequal subsidence, affecting principally the more
southern parts of the land of the northern hemisphere. Thus, a wide sea area
stretched across all the south of Europe and Asia, and separated the northern
part of North America from what of land existed in the southern hemisphere.
This is the age of the great Nummulitic Limestones of Europe, Africa, and Asia,
and the Orbitoidal Limestones of North America. The names are derived from
the prevalence of certain forms of those humble shell-bearing protozoa which
we first met with in the Laurentian, and which we have found to be
instrumental in building up the chalk, the Foraminifera of zoologists. (Fig. p.
243.) But in the Eocene the species of the chalk were replaced by certain
broad flat forms, the appearance of which is expressed by the term
nummulite, or money-stone; the rock appearing to be made up of fossils,
somewhat resembling shillings, sixpences, or three-penny pieces, according to
the size of the shells, each of which includes a vast number of small concentric
chambers, which during life were filled with the soft jelly of the animal. The
nummulite limestone was undoubtedly oceanic, and the other shells contained
in it are marine species. After what we have already seen we do not need this
limestone to convince us of the continent-building powers of the oceanic
protozoa; but the distribution of these limestones, and the elevation which
they attain, furnish the most striking proofs that we can imagine of the
changes which the earth’s crust has undergone in times geologically modern,
and also of the extreme newness of man and his works. Large portions of
those countries which constitute the earliest seats of man in Southern Europe,
Northern Africa, and Western and Southern Asia, are built upon the old
nummulitic sea-bottom. The Egyptians and many other ancient nations
quarried it for their oldest buildings. In some of these regions it attains a
thickness of several thousand feet, evidencing a lapse of time in its
accumulation equal to that implied in the chalk itself. In the Swiss Alps it
reaches a height above the sea of 10,000 feet, and it enters largely into the
structure of the Carpathians and Pyrenees. In Thibet it has been observed at
an elevation of 16,500 feet above the sea. Thus we learn that at a time no
more geologically remote than the Eocene Tertiary, lands now of this great
elevation were in the bottom of the deep sea; and this not merely for a little
time, but during a time sufficient for the slow accumulation of hundreds of feet
of rock, made up of the shells of successive generations of animals. If geology
presented to us no other revelation than this one fact, it would alone
constitute one of the most stupendous pictures in physical geography which
could be presented to the imagination. I beg leave here to present to the
reader a little illustration of the limestone-making Foraminifera of the
Cretaceous and Eocene seas. In the middle above is a nummulite of the
natural size. Below is another, sliced to show its internal chambers. At one side
is a magnified section of the common building stone of Paris, the milioline
limestone of the Eocene, so called from its immense abundance of microscopic
shells of the genus Miliolina. At the other side is a magnified section of one of
the harder varieties of chalk, ground so thin as to become transparent,[AH] and
mounted in Canada balsam. It shows many microscopic chambered shells of
Foraminifera. These may serve as illustrations of the functions of these humble
inhabitants of the sea as accumulators of calcareous matter. It is further
interesting to remark that some of the beds of nummulitic limestone are so
completely filled with these shells, that we might from detached specimens
suppose that they belonged to sea-bottoms whereon no other form of life was
present. Yet some beds of this age are remarkably rich in other fossils. Lyell
states that as many as six hundred species of shells have been found in the
principal limestone of the Paris basin alone; and the lower Eocene beds afford
remains of fishes, of reptiles, of birds, and of mammals. Among the latter are
the bones of gigantic whales, of which one of the most remarkable is the
Zeuglodon of Alabama, a creature sometimes seventy feet in length, and
which replaces in the Tertiary the great Elasmosaurs and Ichthyosaurs of the
Mesozoic, marking the advent, even in the sea, of the age of Mammals as
distinguished from the age of Reptiles.
[AH] As for instance that of the Giant’s Causeway, Antrim.

This fact leads us naturally to consider in the second place the mammalia,
and other land animals of the Tertiary. At the beginning of the period we meet
with that higher group of mammals, not pouched, which now prevails. Among
the oldest of these Tertiary beasts are Coryphodon, an animal related to the
Modern Tapirs, and Arctocyon, a creature related to the bears and racoons.
These animals represent respectively the Pachyderms, or thick-skinned
mammals, and the ordinary Carnivora. Contemporary with or shortly
succeeding these, were species
representing the Rodents, or
gnawing animals, and many other
creatures of the group
Pachydermata, allied to the Modern
Tapirs and Hogs, as well as several
additional carnivorous quadrupeds.
Thus at the very beginning of the
Tertiary period we enter on the age
of mammals, It may be well,
however, to take these animals
somewhat in chronological order.
If the old Egyptian, by quarrying
the nummulite limestone, bore FORAMINIFERAL ROCK-BUILDERS.
unconscious testimony to the recent A. Nummulites lævigata—Eocene.
origin of man (whose remains are B. The same, showing chambered
wholly absent from the Tertiary interior.
deposits), so did the ancient Britons C. Milioline limestone, magnified—
and Gauls, when they laid the first Eocene, Paris.
rude foundations of future capitals D. Hard Chalk, section magnified—
on the banks of the Thames and of Cretaceous.
the Seine. Both cities lie in basins of
Eocene Tertiary, occupying hollows
in the chalk. Under London there is principally a thick bed of clay, the “London
clay” attaining a thickness of five hundred feet. This bed is obviously marine,
containing numerous species of sea shells; but it must have been deposited
near land, as it also holds many fossil fruits and other remains of plants to
which we shall refer in the sequel, and the bones of several species of large
animals. Among these the old reptiles of the Mesozoic are represented by the
vertebrae of a supposed “sea snake” (Palæophis) thirteen feet long, and
species of crocodile allied both to the alligators and the gavials. But besides
these there are bones of several animals allied to the hog and tapir, and also a
species of opossum, These remains must be drift carcases from neighbouring
shores, and they show first the elevation of the old deep-sea bottom
represented by the chalk, so that part of it became dry land; next, the
peopling of that land by tribes of animals and plants unknown to the Mesozoic;
and lastly, that a warm climate must have existed, enabling England at this
time to support many types of animals and plants now proper to intertropical
regions. As Lyell well remarks, it is most interesting to observe that these beds
belong to the beginning of the Tertiary, that they are older than those great
nummulite limestones to which we have referred, and that they are older than
the principal mountain chains of Europe and Asia. They show that no sooner
was the Cretaceous sea dried from off the new land, than there were
abundance of animals and plants ready to occupy it, and these not the
survivors of the flora and fauna of the Wealden, but a new creation. The
mention of the deposit last named places this in a striking light. We have seen
that the Wealden beds, under the chalk, represent a Mesozoic estuary, and in
it we have the remains of the animals and plants of the land that then was.
The great Cretaceous subsidence intervened, and in the London clay we have
an estuary of the Eocene. But if we pass through the galleries of a museum
where these formations are represented, though we know that both existed in
the same locality under a warm climate, we see that they belong to two
different worlds, the one to that of the Dinosaurs, the Ammonites, the Cycads,
and the minute Marsupials of the Mesozoic, the other to that of the
Pachyderms, the Palms, and the Nautili of the Tertiary.
The London clay is lower Eocene; but in the beds of the Isle of Wight and
neighbouring parts of the South of England, we have the middle and upper
members of the series. They are not, however, so largely developed as in the
Paris basin, where, resting on the equivalent of the London clay, we have a
thick marine limestone, the Calcaire Grossier, abounding in marine remains,
and in some beds composed of shells of foraminifera. The sea in which this
limestone was deposited, a portion no doubt of the great Atlantic area of the
period, became shallow, so that beds of sand succeeded those of limestone,
and finally it was dried up into lake basins, in which gypsum, magnesian
sediments, and siliceous limestone were deposited. These lakes or ponds must
at some period have resembled the American “salt-licks,” and were no doubt
resorted to by animals from all the surrounding country in search of the saline
mud and water which they afforded. Hence in some marly beds intervening
between the layers of gypsum, numerous footprints occur, exactly like those
already noticed in the Trias. Had there been a Nimrod in those days to watch
with bow or boomerang by the muddy shore, he would have seen herds of
heavy short-legged and three-hoofed monsters (Palæotherium), with large
heads and long snouts, probably scantily covered with sleek hair, and closely
resembling the Modern Tapirs of South America and India, laboriously wading
through the mud, and grunting with indolent delight as they rolled themselves
in the cool saline slime. Others more light and graceful, combining some
features of the antelope with those of the Tapir (Anoplotherium) ran in herds
over the drier ridges, or sometimes timidly approached the treacherous clay,
tempted by the saline waters. Other creatures representing the Modern
Damans or Conies—“feeble folk” which, with the aspect of hares, have the
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