2 Prof. H. O. Seeley — On Pareiasaurus Baini. 



removing the remains, with the aid of my friends, from the mountain 

 side. It was my share of the task to direct and control the 

 quarrying operations of ten men, all through the day, to identify 

 every part of the skeleton as it was successively exposed, so as to 

 prevent the picks from destroying it as soon as it was touched ; 

 to mark with vermilion colour every isolated block as it was broken 

 away from the remains, so as to have hope that they would some 

 day be joined together again ; and finally to direct the carrying of 

 the blocks down to the boxes in the waggon which was waiting to 

 receive them in the valley below, so as to insure that pieces which 

 were associated should not be widely separated from each other. 

 With the exception of Mr. Marais and Mr, Thomas Bain, I had 

 never previously met any of the men who shared with me the labour 

 of getting the fossil away. After many accidents, resulting from 

 its weight being greater than the boxes obtainable were able to 

 endure, the fossil reached the British Museum, an unprepossessing 

 heap of rock, among which were some indications of bones. 



During three months I built those fragments together, so as to 

 restore the remains to the aspect which they presented on the 

 mountain side on that 12th of August. And then the rock was 

 gradually removed by Mr. Eichard Hall, under my constant super- 

 vision, extending over the greater part of two years. The bones 

 were retained in the positions in which they were found at first, 

 till it became manifest that, by partially separating them, they 

 might be articulated with each other. Thus a partial restoration 

 of the form of the skeleton has been made, without attempting to 

 restore the vertebral column to its original curvature. To this 

 Mr. Caleb Barlow has contributed in moulding the forms of some 

 bones on the left side, now tinted a paler colour, which were not 

 found. 



At present it would be premature to say anything concerning 

 this animal as a contribution to the stores of knowledge of animal 

 structure in comparative anatomy. It admits of being compared 

 with the known groups of reptiles recent and fossil as well as with 

 mammals. Hereafter the value of these comparisons will become 

 evident when the fossil allies of the Pareiasaurus take their places 

 by its side. Its true afiSnities are to a great extent masked under 

 superficial characteristics, such as are seen in the pitted armour which 

 roofs over the skull, in a way which parallels the labyrinthodont 

 type, so as to show that Labyrinthodonts more closely approach 

 reptiles than had been previously demonstrable. The single occipital 

 condyle, even though it is almost as concave as in a Teleostian fish, 

 leaves no doubt that the animal finds its place among true reptilia. 

 But no animal previously known has shown such a multitude of 

 sharp recurved teeth on the palate, coupled with teeth in sockets in 

 the alveolar margins of the jaw ; which are like those of the marine 

 lizard Amhlyrhynclius in general type, though the number of denticles 

 is greater, and the successional teeth appear to be arranged uniformly 

 in the mandible below the series in use. The most singular structure 

 of the palate is the lateral truncation of what are probably the 



