ROOM III. FOSSIL SALAMANDER OF (ENINGEN. 185 



In these marls are imbedded the foliage and stems of 

 various kinds of dicotyledonous trees, shells, remains of 

 insects, crustaceans, fishes, turtles, and of large batrachians. 

 These fresh-water beds have manifestly been accumulated in 

 a lake at some very remote period, for their deposition must 

 have long preceded the present condition of the country, as 

 by far the greater number of the animals and plants are 

 either extinct forms, or belong to species not known as in- 

 digenous in Europe ; and the Rhine has worn a channel 

 through the entire series and the molasse on which they are 

 superposed, to the depth of several hundred feet. 1 



In the early part of the eighteenth century, the fossil 

 Batrachians of (Eningen, deeply interesting as they are to the 

 palaeontologist, acquired far greater notoriety than they would 

 ever have obtained as objects of scientific research, in conse- 

 quence of the opinion which then generally prevailed that all 

 petrifactions had been produced by an universal deluge ; and 

 in 1725, the fancied resemblance of a cranium attached to 

 a portion of a skeleton, discovered in the quarry at (Eningen, 

 to a human skull pressed flat, led M. Scheuchzer, an eminent 

 physician of his day, to declare, that at length the petrified 

 remains of one of the sinful individuals who had perished in 

 that catastrophe were brought to light ! Under this delusion 

 he published the well-known treatise entitled, " Homo diluvii 

 testis et theoscopos" 2 This memoir contained an excellent figure 

 of the fossil skeleton, which the author described as "the 

 remains of one of that accursed race which was overwhelmed 

 by the waters of the deluge, and whose bones and flesh were 

 incorporated into stone." 



The rounded form of the head, the size of the orbits, and 

 other batrachian characters of the supposed " petrified man," 

 were, however, so obvious from Scheuchzer's own figure and 

 descriptions alone, that the true nature of the original was 

 suggested by M. Cuvier, before he had seen any of the fossil 

 remains. In 1811, Cuvier visited the Teylerian Museum at 



1 Sir Roderick Murchison, on the Lacustrine deposits of (Eningen, 

 " Geol. Trans." vol. iii p. 277, and " Geol. Journal," for 1846, p. 54. 



2 " The MAN who had witnessed the Deluge, and beheld God." A brief 

 notice of Scheuchzer's fossil man was published in the " Philos. Trans." 

 for 1726, vol. xxxiv. p. 48. 



