Coelacanth

… if this world of ours is the work of intelligence, and not merely the product of force and matter; the human mind as a part of the whole should so chime with it, that from what is known it may reach the unknown; and if this be so, the amount of information thus far gathered should—within the limits of errors which the imperfection of our knowledge renders unavoidable—be sufficient to foretell what we are likely to find in the deepest abysses of the sea, from which, thus far, nothing has been secured. I will not undertake to lay down the line of argument upon which I base my statement, beyond what is suggested in the few words preceding, namely, that there is a correlation between the gradation of animals in the complication of their structure, their order of succession in geological times, their modes of development from the egg, and their geological distribution upon the surface of the globe. If that be so; and if the animal world designed from the beginning has been the

motive for the physical changes which our globe has undergone; and if, as I also believe to be the case, these changes have not been the cause of the diversity now observed among organized beings; then we may expect from the greater depth of the ocean representatives resembling those types of animals which were prominent in earlier geological periods, or bear a closer resemblance to younger stages of the higher members of the same types, or to the lower forms which take their place nowadays. And to leave no doubt that I have a distinct perception of what I may anticipate, I make the following specific statement:--

It lies in the very nature of these animals that among vertebrates, neither mammalia, nor birds can exist in deep waters; and if any reptiles exist there, it could only be such as are related to extinct types of the Jurassic periods—the ichthyosauri, plesiosauri, and the pterodactyls—but even of these there is very little probability that any of their representatives are still alive. Among the fishes, however, I expect to discover some marine representatives of the order of the ganoids, of both of the principal types known, from the secondary zoological period, such as lepidoids, sauroids, pycnodonts, coelacanths, and moids and glyptolepis-like species may even be looked for…