350 ON A SPINAL COLITMN OP LOXOMMA ALLMANNI. 



supposed Mammalian Eemains of tlie Northumberland Carbon- 

 iferous Strata," under the name of Maerosaurus poh/spondi/Ius. 

 At that time it had been, as already said, very imperfectly 

 cleared from its matrix, so that an accurate description and 

 drawing was impossible. 



'No other part of the skeleton than the spine, and a few frag- 

 ments of ribs adherent to it, was brought away. The only 

 other organic relic found on the specimen was a fragment of a 

 tooth of a Megalichthys, which remains in situ near to the 

 second neural spine, at the anterior end of the specimen. 



In 1877, Mr. Barkas placed the fragmentary specimen in the 

 hands of the late Mr, Thomas Atthey, an ardent collector and 

 skilful preparer and investigator of fossils, to be worked out, 

 for presentation to the Ifewcastle Museum. He devoted his 

 whole time and energies to the task; but, unhappily, in the midst 

 of his unremitting application he was stricken with temporary 

 blindness and persistent paralysis, and could not afterwards re- 

 sume the work which he had set his mind to accomplish. 



The specimen was afterwards placed in the hands of Mr. 

 Dinning, who enclosed it in an artificial matrix and a frame, 

 and so successfully cleared away the remaining parts of the 

 matrix as to leave little further to be done. 



The fossil is seen to consist of a much longer series of vertebrae 

 of the spinal column of Loxomma AUmanni than has hitherto 

 been recovered from the Northumberland Coal Field. 



It consists of two fragments of very unequal length. The 

 longer is an uninterrupted series of thirty-two bodies of verte- 

 brae with their intervertebral disks, and a small portion of an 

 anterior zygapophysis of another vertebra. In connection with 

 these vertebrae are several parts, more or less imperfect, of ribs. 

 The specimen lies on its right side, in a slightly curved line, 

 and measures four feet one-and-a-half inch in length. 



The shorter fragment is only six inches in length, and is 

 separated from the former by a space which is artificial, and 

 does not at all represent that which in the natural state would 

 have been occupied by missing vertebrae, the number of which 

 can only be matter for conjecture. 



