52 
The New Red Sandstone period represents a widely 
different condition in this country, and is throughout an 
enormous vertical thickness, barren for the most part of 
animal or vegetable life; the most notable facts are the 
absence of shells and the presence of many singular 
reptiles, represented by many species of an extinct form 
of acquatic Salamander, to which the name of Labyrin- 
thodon has been given, from the peculiar labyrinth struc- 
ture of the teeth, and which has left more frequent traces 
of its existence in the form of footprints than in any 
other way; the portions of the skeleton which are pre- 
served being mostly confined to the lower Keuper. Of 
the four fish known in this formation, the most abundant 
belonged to a species of shark, one a carboniferous genus 
(Palzoniscus), and one undescribed, both of which were 
discovered in the upper Keuper at Rowington and Shrewley, 
near this town. The fourth is the Dipteronotus already 
referred to (p. 13). These are the only entire fish which 
have ever been detected in the Trias, and therefore are of 
special interest. The plants are too fragmentary to say 
much about, but show the presence of land, though very 
remote, and the determination by Professor Huxley of 
the occurrence of certain Dinosauria during this epoch, 
proves the existence of gigantic terrestrial reptiles not 
previously suspected, the remains of which have been 
found in the sandstone on which this town is built. On 
the whole, the Warwick (lower Keuper) sandstone has 
yielded some of the most remarkable and valuable Laby- 
rinthodont remains yet discovered, and your Museum here 
contains the finest collection in Great Britain. Consider- 
ing the small amount of quarrying in this neighbourhood, 
a good many fossils have been detected, and if more 
extensively worked I believe the upper and lower Keuper 
would afford a much larger and perhaps more varied 
