in the Neighbourhood of Edinburgh. 215 
the “* View of the present state of Derbyshire” (vol. i. p. 200), written by PrnK1Ne- 
ron in the year 1789. The writer not only affirms that a small alligator was found 
entire in the black marble of Ashford, but he also adds that another specimen, the 
tail and back of a crocodile, had been discovered in the same locality, and had met 
with preservation in a cabinet at Brussels. 
But it is time to advert to statements better verified. 
In the year 1793, the Rev. Davip Ure wrote his History of Rutherglen (a most 
interesting work), in which it is certain that he discovered part of a jaw and teeth, 
which, from the drawing given of them (plate 19 of his work), are referable to the 
Megalichthys. They are said to have been found among schist in the quarries of 
of Philipshill, and in the till above coal at Stonelaw. (See p. 330 of the work). Other 
remarkable teeth will also be found described in his work. 
In the year 1830, Dr Ftemine published an account of scales, and of a tooth 
which evidently belonged to the Megalichthys. They were found in the yellow sand- 
stone of Drumdryan quarry to the south of Cupar, and in the red sandstone of Clash- 
binnie near Errol in Perthshire (Edinburgh Journal of Natural and Geographical 
Science, vol. iii. p. 81.) 
During the same year, viz. in a. p. 1830, Mr Lye x1, in his Principles of Geology, 
states, that the Rev. Vernon Harcourt discovered in the mountain limestone of 
Northumberland a saurian vertebra. Whether this relic may be referred, or not, to 
the Megalichthys, remains to be determined. 
In December 1833 my discovery took place of the Megalichthys of Burdiehouse. 
Also in 1833, there was figured in the Fossil Flora of Professor uinpiry and 
Mr Hutton some remarkable relics, which, under an impression, acknowledged at 
the time to be a very dubious one, that they, might be identified with some fungus, 
suggested the name of Polyporites Bowmanni, ‘They were discovered by J. E. Bow- 
MAN, Esq., of the Court near Wrexham, among the ejected shale of a coal-pit near 
the entrance of the vale of Llangollen in the County of Denbigh (Fossil Flora, 
plate 65). Although the writers of the Fossil Flora have proposed the name of 
Polyporites Bowmanni, indicative of a vegetable fungus, it is with proper caution re- 
marked, that “it is a matter of great doubt whether these relics actually belong to 
the vegetable kingdom ;” and they admit with Mr Bowmay, that one of his specimens 
“‘ might be taken for the scale of a fish, or of some great saurian reptile.” Now I 
have little or no doubt whatever in my mind, that these relics are the round scales 
of the Megalichthys. It is stated at the close of the communication, that it may be 
worth considering “ whether the Carpolithes umbonatus of Srernzere, referred with 
doubt to Cyclopteris by ApotpHe Bronentarr, may not also be something of a si- 
milar nature.” 
In 1834, Mr Wirnam of Lartington obtained from the limestone of East Calder 
some scales of the Megalichthys. Mr Rostson procured some teeth from Greenside, 
near Glasgow, of the Megalichthys faleatus (Acass.), and Lord GreENnock made the 
highly interesting discovery, that the remains of the Megalichthys were entombed in 
a seam of coal and bituminous shale at Stoneyhill, near Musselburgh, along with 
various other relics. 
