CHAPTER II. 



HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMPHIBIA IN THE COAL MEASURES. 



Sir William Logan, in 1841, discovered in the Coal Measures of Horton's Bluff, 

 Nova Scotia, some tracks of Amphibia which he carried to London and which Sir 

 Richard Owen pronounced to be undoubted "reptilian" tracks. This fact was 

 published in 1842 (380) and was the first recorded evidence of the occurrence of 

 land vertebrates in the Carboniferous rocks of the world. To these tracks Sir 

 William Dawson later gave the name of Hylopus logani. 



Two years later Dr. Gergens (291) wrote a letter to Professor Bronn, the founder 

 and one of the editors of the "Neues Jahrbuch fur Mineralogie, Geologic und Pale- 

 ontologie," in regard to an important discovery in the Carboniferous rocks of Ger- 

 many. The letter is of such exceptional interest in connection with the history of 

 the fossil Amphibia that it is given here: 



"In dem Brandschiefer von Munsterappel in Rhein-Bayern habe ich in vorigen Jahre 

 einen Salamander aufgefunden und Hrn. H. v. Meyer in Frankfurt zur naheren Unter- 

 suchung und Beschreibung iibergeben; Gehort dieser Schiefer der Kohlen-Formation ? 

 in diesem Falle ware der Fund in anderen Hinsicht interessant." 



The form discovered by Dr. Gergens and described by Hermann von Meyer as 

 an amphibian is a little puzzling as to its characters. Miall (449, p. 183) says that 

 the remains are too imperfect for close definition. The form, as figured, resembles 

 an immature branchiosaurian, as one is at once reminded, from an examination of 

 Von Ammon's Branchiosaurus caducus (7, Taf. IV, fig. i). In 1844 Dr. Alfred 

 King (356) announced the discovery of "reptilian" footprints in the Carboniferous 

 of Pennsylvania. 



The next announcement of fossil Amphibia was made by Goldfuss (296), who 

 in 1847 described the famous Archegosaurits from the upper Carboniferous of Ger- 

 many, from the remains which had as long ago as 1777 been regarded as a fish. Two 

 years later Isaac Lea (371) announced to the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, through Buckland, the discovery of footprints in the old Red 

 Sandstone (Mauch Chunk) of Pennsylvania. These objects occur not rarely in the 

 Mauch Chunk shales, which are of upper Mississippian age. Barrell (21, p. 460) 

 records the finding of imperfect tracks in the same beds, and Rogers (Geology of 

 Pennsylvania, pt. n, 1856, p. 831) records three unnamed varieties from 2,200 feet 

 below the top of the Mauch Chunk. Branson (50) has recorded the finding of 

 other amphibian footprints from the Mississippian of Giles County, Virginia. 



Lyell and Dawson (396), in 1853, read a paper before the Geological Society of 

 London, in which they announced the discovery of remains of Amphibia in the Coal 

 Measures of North America, although Dawson had previously, in 1850, discovered 

 the skull of Baphetes planiceps Owen, which was not described until the latter part 

 of 1853 (509). The specimen had lain unnoticed in the collection of the Geological 

 Society for more than two years. When, however, the announcement was made 



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