GEOLOGY. 331 



cesses he regards as dorsal, and believes them to have belonged to an 

 adult individual of a much smaller species, about six inches long, 

 whereas the jaws and bones before mentioned are those of a creature 

 probably two and a half feet in length. The microscopic structure of 

 these small vertebras was found by Professor Quekett to exhibit the 

 same marked reptilian characters as that of the larger bones. The 

 fossil remains in question were scattered about the interior of the trunk 

 near its base among fragments of wood, now converted into charcoal, 

 which may have fallen in while the tree was rotting away, having been 

 afterwards cemented together by mud and sand stained black by car- 

 bonaceous matter. Whether the reptile crept into the hollow tree 

 while its top was still open to the air, or whether it was washed in with 

 mud during a flood, or in whatever other manner it entered, must be 

 matter of conjecture. Foot-prints of two reptiles of different sizes 

 have been observed by Dr. Harding and Dr. Gesner, on ripple-marked 

 flags of the lower coal measures in Nova Scotia, evidently made by 

 quadrupeds walking on the beach, or out of the water, just as the 

 recent Menopoma is sometimes observed to do. Other reptilian foot- 

 prints of much larger size had been previously noticed (as early as 

 1844) in the coal of Pennsylvania, by Dr. King ; and in Europe three 

 or four instances^of skeletons of the same class of animals have been 

 obtained, but the present is the first example of any of their bones 

 having been met with in America in rocks of higher antiquity than 

 the Trias. It is hoped, however, that other instances will soon come 

 to light, when the contents of upright trees, so abundant in Nova Sco- 

 tia, have been systematically explored ; for in such situations the prob- 

 ability of discovering ancient air-breathing creatures seems greater 

 than in ordinary subaqueous deposits. Nevertheless we must not in- 

 dulge too sanguine expectations on this head, w r hen we recollect that 

 no fossil vertebrata of a higher grade than fishes, nor any land-shells, 

 have as vet been met with in the Oolitic coal-field of the James River, 







near Richmond, Virginia; a coal-field which has been worked exten- 

 sively for three quarters of a century. The coal alluded to is bitumi- 

 nous, and as a fuel resembles the best of the ancient coal of Nova Sco- 

 tia and Great Britain. The associated strata of sandstone and shale 

 contain prostrate zamites and ferns, and erect calamites and equiseta, 

 which last evidently remain in the position where they grew in mud 

 and sand. Whether the age of these beds be Oolitic, as Messrs. W. 

 Rogers and Lyell have concluded, or Upper Triassic, as some other 

 geologists suspect, they still belong clearly to an epoch when saurians 

 and other reptiles flourished abundantly in Europe ; and they there- 

 fore prove that the preservation of ancient terrestrial surfaces, even in 

 secondary rocks, does not imply, as we might have anticipated, condi- 

 tions the most favorable to our finding therein creatures of a higher 

 organization than fishes. In breaking up the rock in which the rep- 

 tilian bones were entombed, a small fossil body resembling a land-shell 

 of the genus Pupa was detected. As such it was recognised by Dr. 

 Gould, of Boston, and afterwards by M.JDeshayes, of Paris ; both of 

 whom carefully examined its form and striation. When parts of the 



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