1864.] Geology and Paleontology. 127 
from one or two inches to many feet. The cement is very meagre, and 
consists of talcose schist, containing crystals of magnetite: the 
pebbles, however, are firmly adherent. In small flexures of the strata, 
Dr. Hitchcock has observed the elongated pebbles bent at the same 
angles. 
The part of the ‘ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society,’* 
containing Professor Owen’s valuable and admirable Report on the 
extraordinary bird-remains from the lithographic limestone of Pappen- 
heim—the Archeopteryx macrorus—has been published during the past 
month, and the full particulars of the memorable description which 
excited such attention at Burlington House, in the November of last 
year, are now before the world. It appears to have received little 
alteration or emendation, as far as our memory will permit our judging, 
since the time of its first reading, when the completeness and Iucid- 
ness of the account were features which prominently struck all hearers. 
The first evidence of bird-remains in the Solenhofen-beds was, as itis 
well known, the impression of a single feather, described and figured, 
with his characteristic minuteness and care, by Hermann von Mayer, 
in the ‘Jahrbuch fiir Mineralogie,’ under the title of Archaopteryx 
lithographica, and although it is most probable that the class of birds 
was represented in the Solenhofen age by more than one family, Pro- 
fessor Owen has retained the generic appellation of Archzopteryx for 
the present specimen. As the reptilian pterodactyles of the litho- 
graphic stone differ in the length of their tails—some having extremely 
long ones, as the Ramphorhynchus longicaudus, and others scarcely 
any, as the Pterodactylus crassirostris, so we may expect to find 
similar differences in the strange birds which lived in those days; and 
just as the original appellation of Griphosaurus given to it by Wagner, 
under the idea of its being a feathered reptile, has been changed to 
Archeopteryx, it is not by ¢ any means certain that the generic term may 
not yet have to be again altered. 
Professor Owen’s paper commences with an account of the circum- 
stances under which the specimen was found and those under which it 
was acquired for our national collection. The exposed bones in the 
specimen are then named, and one after another compared with those 
of recent birds of different species, and the corresponding bones of 
various fossil pterodactyles, a comparison requiring unusual care and 
accuracy on account of the previously supposed reptilian characters of 
the singular remains. By his examination and comparison Professor 
Owen has proved the general ornithic nature of the fossil—a conclusion 
which must be henceforth adopted; although there are some points 
which cannot be settled by the present relics, and which may hereafter, 
when fresh examples revive the subject, give rise to some important 
considerations. A magnificent lithograph of natural size is given of 
the principal slab and its contents, even to its ripples and surface- 
markings, by Mr. Dinkel, who has as conscientiously done his duty in 
* ¢ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London,’ vol. cliii. part 1, 
1863. 
