THECODONTIA 253 



surface, in a red sandstone supposed to be of the same age as 

 that of Connecticut, so remarkable for the various and singular 

 foot-marks, referable, some to reptiles, and others to large birds. 



Genus Protorosaurus, Von. Meyer. 



Sp. Protorosaurus Spencri, Von M. — The first fossil Saurian 

 on record is that which marks the circumstance by its generic 

 name, and honours its deseriber by the specific one. The 

 slab of " copper-slate" from the Permian beds of Eisenach in 

 Thuringia, displaying, either in fossils or impressions, the 

 skull, vertebral column, and bones of the fore foot of the 

 reptile in question, was figured and described by Spener, a 

 physician at Berlin, in 1710.* The original specimen is now 

 in the museum of the Pioyal College of Surgeons, London, 

 where it forms part of the Hunterian series of fossils. It 

 was obtained from a copper-mine near Eisenach, at a depth of 

 100 feet from the surface. 



A second specimen, showing the two fore limbs, a hind 

 limb, and part of the trunk, was described by Link in I7l8.t 

 < 'uvier gives copies of portions of two other specimens in his 

 Osscmens Fossiles.\ 



The healthy, honest mind of Spener is shown by the 

 conclusions which he formed from the state of preservation 

 of his specimen (" omnia, enim, minutissima, etiam apophyses, 

 spina?," etc.), and from its association with equally well- 

 preserved remains of fishes, and even of the delicate leaves of 

 plants, against the notions of those fossils merely simulating, 

 and never having been, the living organisms which they 

 represented — notions which were then advocated under the 

 sounding phrase of " plastic force," as they have lately been 

 under that of "prochronism." Spener's only doubt was, 

 whether the reptile had been a crocodile or a lizard ; but he 



* Miscellanea Bevolinensia, 4io, i., p. 99, figs. 24 and 25. 



f Acta Eruditorum, 1718, p. 188, pi. ii. 



| Ed. 8vo, 1830, pi. cexxxvii., figs. 1 and 2. 



