The Story of the Petrified Creatures that lived 285 Million Years Ago at The Wilds.

The Wilds, Warren, NY: F. M. Kirkner,Prop., 1946. Octavo, paperbound (stiff brown textured stapled wrappers), 23 pp. Fine. From Preface: This story of The Petrified Creatures that lived 285 million years ago at “The Wilds,” was written by the late Dr. Harold O. Whitnall, professor of geology, Colgate University, and added to by William P. Anderson and the owner in answer to the many requests for an outline in booklet form of the natural find here. The owner wishes to express his deep appreciation and thanks to the many paleontologists and geologists from various parts of the United Sates and other countries who have been so helpful in identifying the many specimens recorded here and for their cooperation as a whole. Deep-sea fishing in central New York, within a stone’s toss of U. S. Route 20, may seem to be the extravagantly fanciful dream of an overwrought fisherman. Yet this very sport is being carried on daily at “The Wilds” near Warren, New York. Here the visitor may witness the trawling operation and see displayed the “catches” of marine animals which once swam or floated in the waters or crawled or burrowed in the muddy bottoms of a very ancient sea. The Wilds are located on the uplifted bed of a sea which spread over central and southern New York some 285,000,000 years ago. Known to geologists as the Devonian, this sea of the long ago extended within the borders of the North American continent as a broad V from Nova Scotia, south westerly, to the Gulf of Mexico and hence northwesterly to Alaska. Had the Queen Mary plowed that almost forgotten sea she would have passed, had she steered a central course, nearly over the sea-bottom of The Wilds.