181 



AMPHIBIA. 



AMPHIBIA. 



182 



Tschudi), and Palceophrynos Gessrwri, Tschudi. (See 'Classification 

 der Batrachier' of J. J. Tschudi, pp. 84, 89, tab. 1, ff. 2, 3.) 



Fossil Salamandridit. Few fossils have awakened more curiosity 

 than the Homo Dilurii Tetfis of Scheuchzer, who was unwearied in 

 collecting organic remains, which he considered irrefragable evidence 

 of the general deluge. . At length he obtained from the (Eningen Beds 

 (Miocene Period of Lyell) a fossil which he viewed with transport as 

 the unequivocal remains of Man himself. A short description of this 

 specimen was published by him in the ' Philosophical Transactions' 

 for 1726. He again brought forward this piece of 'good fortune' : (in 

 his rapture he writes the last two words in Greek ) in his ' Physica 

 Sacra,' where he tells us that previously he had only possessed two . 

 dorsal vertebrae. Of the humanity of his prize he certainly entertained 

 no doubt. In his rapturous vision he saw in the fossil not only one 

 part of the human skeleton, but many parts. No fancy could possibly 

 lead astray in a case where there were appearances of bones, and flesh, 

 and even the softer parts of flesh, impressed on the solid stone. Here 

 indeed was a rarity above all rarities. He gives no bad figure 

 of the fossi! in tab. xlix. of the work last quoted: When we look at 

 that figure, it is difficult to conceive how such remains could have 

 appeared to a physician, who must have had some acquaintance with 

 osteology, to be those of man ; and we can only account for it by 

 the blindness which an excited imagination and a determined adherence 

 to theory can produce. The iteration and determination of Scheuchzer 

 had its effect, and naturalists adopted his opinions. Gesner (1758) 

 appears to have been the first who threw deserved doubt on the alleged 

 nature of the fossil ; for though he quotes it as an anthropolite, he 

 nevertheless, having become possessed of a similar specimen, offers 

 his conjecture that it was a fossil fish (Silurut giants, Linn.), and the 

 obsequious naturalists were now as ready to follow' him as they had 

 been eager to run after Scheuchzer. 



Gesner's specimen does not appear to have been engraved, nor 

 another which was said to be in the convent of Augustins at 

 (Eningen ; but a third specimen, more complete than Scheuchzer' s, 

 came into the possession 

 of Dr. Ammann of Zu- 

 rich, and is now in the 

 British Museum. A 

 figure of this was pub- 

 lished by Karg, in the 

 ' Memoirs of the Society 

 of Naturalists of Suabia.' 



Cuvier well observes 

 that a comparison of 

 the specimen with the 

 skeleton of Man must at 

 once have destroyed the 

 idea that it was anthro- 

 polite ; and it would be 

 a waste of space to repeat 

 here the details of that 

 comparison which Cuvier 

 so well follows out, and 

 to which we refer. ( ' Os- 

 semens Fossiles,' torn, v., 

 pt. 2, p. 433, ed. 1824.) 



Karg, after figuring 

 Dr. Animanif H specimen, 

 expressly stated that he 

 had no doubt that the 

 fossil was a Silumu, an 

 opinion which Jager 

 refuted by placing by 

 the side, of the figure of 

 the fossil, one of the 

 skeleton of Silurut glanit. 

 Cuvier disposes of this 

 opinion with the same 

 success as attends his 

 former demonstration. 



The rounded head and 

 great orbits of the fossil 

 struck Cuvier as strongly 

 resembling the head of a 

 frog or a salamander ; and 

 he states that, as soon as 

 he beheld Karg's figure, he perceived in the vestiges of the hind-feet 

 and the tail evidence in favour of the last-named genus. 



Cuvier, being at Haarlem in 1811, obtained permission to work upon 

 the stone which contained the pretended anthropolite of Scheuchzer, 

 for the purpose of uncovering any bones which might be still 

 hidden there. During the operation, the figure of the skeleton of 

 a salamander was placed before the operators; and Cuvier relates 

 the pleasure which they felt, as they saw, while the chisel chipped 

 away pieces of the stone, the bones which the figure had already 

 announced. 



But by far the finest head of Andrini Scheuchzeri is figured by 

 Tschudi, in his work above quoted, tab. 3 ; and many most interesting 



Anterior part of Andruii Schtveh&ri, Tnrhndl, 

 seen from above. (Curler.) 



details are given in tab. 4 and tab. 5. These show how nearly allied 

 this gigantic Fossil Newt was to Sitboldia maxima. 



Satamandra ogygia, Goldf., is 

 found in the Braunkohle (Ter- 

 tiary), where also Triton Noa- 

 chicus, Goldf.,, occurs. Triton 

 palustris (?) fossilis of Karg is 

 from the (Eningen Slate. 



Under the generic title Sala- 

 mandroides, Professor Jager 

 described a fossil reptile from 

 the German Keuper, giving it 

 the specific name of giganteus. 

 This fossil now appears to be 

 identical with Mastodonsaurus 

 and Phytomurus. Professor 

 Owen therefore proposes to 

 designate this gigantic genus of 

 extinctBatrachians for to that 

 order he has satisfactorily shown 

 that the form belongs by the 

 name of Labyrinthodon ffrom 

 the extraordinary structure of 

 its teeth), in his paper ' On the 

 Teeth of Species of the Genus 

 Labyrinthodon(3fastodoniawru*, 

 Salamandroidetan&Phytoaaurus 

 (?) of Jager ) from the German 

 Keuper and the Sandstone of 

 Warwick and Leamington.' 



The following description of 

 the teefch of this animal, from, 

 the ' Proceedings of the Geolo- 

 gical Society,' will afford some 

 idea of tie peculiarity of its 

 structure : 



" The plan and principle of 

 the structure of the tooth of 

 the Labyrinthodon are the same 

 as those of the tooth of the 

 Ichthyosaurus, but they are 

 carried out to the highest 

 degree of complication. The 

 converging vertical folds of the 

 external cement are continued 

 close to the centre of the tooth, 

 and instead of being straight 

 simple lamellae, they present a 

 series of irregular folds, in- 

 creasing in complexity as they 

 proceed inwards, and re- 

 sembling the labyrinthic. a/a- 

 fractuosities of the surface of 

 the brain ; each converging 

 fold is slightly dilated at its 

 termination close to the pulp- 

 cavity. The ordinary laws of 

 dental structure are however 

 strictly adhered to, and every 

 space intercepted by a con- 

 volution of the folds of the 

 cement is occupied by corre- 

 sponding processes of the den- 

 tine. These characters were 

 presented by a transverse sec- 

 tion of a fragment of a tooth 

 of the Labyrinthodon Jageri 

 from the German Keuper, which included about the middle 

 third part of a tooth, and Mr. Owen considers that the entire 

 length of the tooth might be 34 inches, and the breadth at the basis 

 1^ inch. 



"The external longitudinal grooves, which correspond to the 

 inflected folds of the cement, extend upwards from the base of the 

 tooth to about three-fourths of its height, decreasing in iiumber as 

 the tooth diminishes in thickness, and disappearing about half an 

 inch from the summit of the tooth. Each fold of cement penetrates 

 less deeply as the groove approaches its termination ; and Mr. Owen 

 conceives that the structure of the upper part of the tooth may be 

 more simple than that of the lower, but he has not yet been able to 

 extend his investigations to it. 



" The dentine consists of a slender, centra], conical column, or 

 'modiolus,' hollow for a certain distance from its base, and radiating 

 outwards from its circumference a series of vertical plates, which 

 divide into two, once or twice, before they terminate at the periphery 

 of the tooth. Each of these diverging and dichotomizing vertical 

 plates gives off throughout its course narrower vertical plates, which 

 stand at nearly right angles to the main plate, in relation to which 

 they are generally opposite, but sometimes alternate. Many of the 



Afldrias ftchcuchzeri, Tschudi, seen from 

 above. (Cuvier.) 



