Something has slain the most formidable race that the earth
had yet known, in spite of its marvellous adaptation to different
environments in its innumerable branches.
We turn to the seas, and find an equal carnage among some of its
most advanced inhabitants. The great cuttlefish-like Belemnites
and the whole race of the Ammonites, large and small, are
banished from the earth. The fall of the Ammonites is
particularly interesting, and has inspired much more or less
fantastic speculation. The shells begin to assume such strange
forms that observers speak occasionally of the "convulsions" or
"death-contortions" of the expiring race. Some of the coiled
shells take on a spiral form, like that of a snail's shell. Some
uncoil the shell, and seem to be returning toward the primitive
type. A rich eccentricity of frills and ornamentation is found
more or less throughout the whole race. But every device --if we
may so regard these changes--is useless, and the devastating
agency of the Cretaceous, whatever it was, removes the Ammonites
and Belemnites from the scene. The Mollusc world, like the world
of plants and of reptiles, approaches its modern aspect.
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