THE OLDEST AIR-BREATHERS 26l 



in the Welsh coal fields. On his return to England he read 

 a paper on these subjects before the Geological Society of 

 London, in which he noticed the subject of reptilian footprints 

 at Horton Bluff. The specimen was exhibited at the meeting 

 of the Society, and was, I believe, admitted, on the high 

 authority of Prof. Owen, to be probably reptilian. Unfortu- 

 nately Sir William's paper appeared only in abstract in the 

 Transactions; and in this abstract, though the footprints are 

 mentioned, no opinion is expressed as to their nature. Sir 

 William's own opinion is thus stated in a letter to me, dated 

 June, 1843, when he was on his way to Canada, to commence 

 the survey which has since developed so astonishing a mass 

 of geological facts. 



" Among the specimens which I carried from Horton Bluff, 

 one is of very high interest. It exhibits the footprints of some 

 reptilian animal. Owen has no doubt of the marks being 

 genuine footprints. The rocks of Horton Bluff are below the 

 gypsum of that neighbourhood ; so that the specimen in ques- 

 tion (if Lyell's views are correct 1 ) comes from the very bottom 

 of the coal series, or at any rate very low down in it, and 

 demonstrates the existence of reptiles at an earlier epoch than 

 has hitherto been determined ; none having been previously 

 found below the magnesian limestone, or, to give it Murchison's 

 new name, the ' Permian era.' " 



This extract is of interest, not merely as an item of evidence 

 in relation to the matter now in hand, but as a mark in the 

 progress of geological investigation. For the reasons above 

 stated, the important discovery thus made in 1841, and pub- 

 lished in 1842, was overlooked; and the discovery of reptilian 

 bones by Von Dechen, at Saarbruck, in 1844, and that of 

 footprints by Dr. King in the same year, in Pennsylvania, 



1 Sir Charles Lyell had then just read a paper announcing his discovery 

 that the gypsiferous system of Nova Scotia is Lower Carboniferous, in 

 which he mentions the footprints referred to, as being reptilian. 



