Section IV., 1904 [13 ] Trans. R. S. C. 



II. — The Progress of Vertebrate Palœontology in Canada. 



By Lawrence M. Lambe, F.G.S., of the Geological Survey of 



Canada. 



(Read June 22, 1904.) 



The dawn of vertebrate palœontology in Canada may be said to 

 have begun when Sir William E. Logan, in 1841, discovered amphibian 

 footprints in the Lower Coal ^Measures at Horton bluff, Nova Scotia. 

 It may be naturally asked — What progress has been made in the science 

 of vertebrate palaeontology since that time, and what is the present 

 state of our knowledge of the vertebrates that inhabited the northern 

 half of this continent, living on the land, in the lakes and rivers, or in 

 the adjacent seas, during past geological ages? It is with the object 

 of reviewing briefly the progressi of Canadian vertebrate palaeontology 

 during this period of over sixty years that the present paper is written. 



The discovery by Sir William Logan of footprints at Horton bluff 

 in 1841 was the first proof of the existence of Carboniferous air-breathing 

 vertebrates. In a paper on the coal-fields of Pennsylvania and Nova 

 Scotia, read by him before the Geological Society of London, shortly 

 after, mention is made of the finding of these tracks, an abstract of the 

 paper appearing in the Proceedings of the Society in 1842.^ 



Sir J. William Dawson, in his " Synopsis of the Air-breathing 

 Animals of the Palaeozoic in Canada, up to 1894," refers to the leading 

 part taken by our eastern provinces in some of the earlier discoveries, 

 but it may be said that whatever credit is due in this regard to eastern 

 Canada is the resatlt, in a great measure, of the untiring energy and 

 industry of Sir William Dawson himself. To him belongs the credit 

 of having made the " first discovery of the osseous remains of any 

 Palaeozoic land vertebrate in America,*'- when in 1850 he found the type 

 of Baphetes planiceps at the Albion mines, Pictou. Sir William 

 Dawson's contributions to vertebrate palaeontology have been principally 

 confined to the description of numerous species of Carboniferous Stego- 

 cephalia. Much of his time was devoted to palœobotany, as is evinced 

 by his numerous writings on the fossil flora of thig country published 

 at frequent intervals during his long life. In his " Acadian Geology " 

 will be found the results of years of arduous work, devoted to the eluci- 



' Proc. GeoL Soc, London, Vol. IIL, pt. II., p. 707. 



" Synopsis of the Air-breathing Animals of the Palaeozoic in Canada, up 

 to 1S94. Transactions Royal Society of Canada for 1894, vol. xii., section iv., 

 p. 71, 1895. 



