FEBRUARY 1953

LIVING FOSSIL--"In the Indian Ocean off Madagascar, fishermen last month netted a five-foot, 100-pound fish which evolutionists promptly hailed as the 'most important zoological discovery of this century.' J.L.B. Smith, South African ichthyologist, flew 3,000 miles in a government-supplied plane to reach the fish in time to preserve it. When he arrived, and found it smelling somewhat strong but largely intact, he broke down and wept. The object of his emotion was a coelacanth, the earliest type of bony fish. Until a few years ago it was believed that such fish had been extinct for 75 million years, but in 1938 one was pulled out of the water by a South African trawler. By the time Smith got hold of it, only its skeleton and skin were left. Since that time he has been on a constant lookout for another specimen."

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