C. Lyell on Fossil Reptilian Remains, etc. 35 
these trees, nine feet high and twenty-two inches in diameter, on 
being examined by Messrs. Dawson and Lyell, yielded, besides 
numerous fossil plants, some bones and teeth which they believed 
were referable to a reptile; but not being competent to decide 
that osteological question they submitted the specimens to Dr. 
Jeflries Wyman of Harvard University in the United States. 
That eminent anatomist declared them to be allied in structure 
to certain perennibranchiate batrachians of the genera Meno- 
branchus and Menopoma, species of which now inhabit the lakes 
and rivers of North America. ‘This determination was soon after- 
length. The microscopic structure of these small vertebrae was 
found by Professor Quekett to exhibit the same marked reptilian 
characters as that of the larger bones. 
The fossil remains in question were scattered about the interior 
of the trunk near its base among fragments of wood now con- 
verted into charcoal, which may have fallen in while the tree was 
rotting away, having been afterwards cemented together by mud 
and sand stained black by carbonaceous matter. Whether the 
reptile crept into the hollow tree while its top was still open to 
the air, or whether it was washed in with mud during a flood, or 
in whatever other manner it entered, must be matter of conjec- 
ture. oot-prints of two reptiles of different sizes have been 
observed by Dr. Harding and Dr. Gesner on ripple-marked flags 
of the lower coal measures in Nova Scotia, evidently made by 
quadrupeds walking on the beach, or out of the water, just as the 
recent Menopoma is sometimes observed to do. Other reptilian 
Ng ancient air-breathing creatures seems greater than in 
* Professors Wyman and Owen have named the reptile Dendrerpeton Acadianum, 
Acadia being an old name for Nova Scotia, tees tie 
ally explored; for in such situations the probability of discover- 
ordinary 
