556 Prof. A. Gaudry — Pakeo)ifology in Germany. 



V. — Palaeontology in Germany and Austria, 



By Prof. Albert Gaudry, Membre de I'lnstitut, For. Memb. Geol. Soc. Lond. 



[Note by the Translator. — M. Albert Gaudry, the well-known 

 Professor of Palfeontology at the Museum of Natural History of 

 Paris, following up a report which he published last year of a visit 

 to the British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Eoad, has 

 recently written an article in the " Eevue Scientifique " ' on a series 

 of visits just paid to the Musemns of Germany and elsewhere. 



This article is valuable, not only for the statement of the existence 

 of a great scientific movement on the Continent, but for the sum- 

 marised sketch it gives of the most interesting geological and 

 palseontological collections in the principal museums of Europe, a 

 knowledge of which is often desiderated by the student when travel- 

 ling abroad. — Mark Stirrup.] 



I SAW that Germany, like England, is erecting Museums of 

 Palgeontology ; each counting it an honour to have a museum 

 which displays the primitive history of its country. 



Stuttgart possesses, besides its general museum in which are the pro- 

 ducts of different countries, a gallery of Geology and Palaeontology, 

 specially devoted to the fossils of Wurtemberg. 



This local collection, directed by Professor Oscar Fraas, has a 

 deserved reputation ; for in it can be followed from age to age the 

 palaeontological history of one of the best studied countries of Europe. 



It is there especially that the astonishing reptiles are seen which 

 lived upon the continents at the epoch of the Trias ; the Atosaurus, 

 the Zanglodon, the Mastodonsaurus, the Metopias, etc., permit one to 

 form some idea of the strange aspect of the fauna of this epoch. 



The museum of Stuttgart is also one of those in which the Liassic 

 epoch is well represented ; it possesses the Holzmaden collection, 

 celebrated for its entire skeletons of reptiles. 



M. Fraas had the kindness to take me to this locality some years 

 ago, in order to show me in what condition the fossils are found ; 

 most frequently they are encrusted with stone, and only swellings or 

 protuberances are seen, which would teach nothing to an uneducated 

 eye ; but M. Fraas is able to foretell where the head, the membei-s, 

 the tail, are to be found, and even he could tell me what kind of 

 animal must be there concealed. It is by the graving tool that those 

 entire skeletons are developed which are the ornament of a great 

 number of museums, and of which we have in Paris some magnifi- 

 cent specimens. 



The collection of Stuttgart contains many Ichthyosauri with young 

 ones enclosed within their ribs, generally they (the young) have the 

 head turned towards the anus, as in other viviparous animals ; never- 

 theless I have seen one which has in its interior two young 

 ones turned towards the head, and another which has six little ones 

 in ventre turned in every direction. Must one suppose that the 

 Ichthyosaurus had sometimes a single young one, like the terrestrial 



^ Extract "Eevue Scientifique," 7 Nov. 1885. 



