Embedded Reptiles. By the President. 497 



the roundish waterworn cavity, which had formed f roggy's home, 

 which we judged to have been about twice the size of an orange, 

 all the rest having been sent off to the kilns. 



Asked why they did not keep part of the block back and send 

 for the foreman, one of the men answered, " D'ye think we were 

 going to lose two hundred weight of stone for a puddock ?" 



Now in considering and trying to account for the presence of 

 incarcerated reptiles, we shall find it convenient to separate them 

 into two groups. 



( 1 ) Those which are really and truly embedded. 



(2) Those which are enclosed in cavities large enough to move 

 about in. 



The members of the former group claim our first chief atten- 

 tion — those reptiles I mean, which have been found, or are 

 alleged to have been found, so firmly and completely embedded 

 in the rock or coal, that they fit into it as closely as a casting, or 

 a bullet in its mould ; so that, on removing the living (if torpid) 

 body, an exact figure of it is seen in the enclosing substance. 



Such instances I have already quoted as being recorded to 

 have occurred at Bykerhill and Chillingham ; and there is 

 another from Bathgate in Linlithgow, where the niche in the 

 middle of a large piece of coal was reported to be quite smooth, 

 and of the exact shape of the liberated frog. 



The great feature of interest in connection with an animal 

 discovered under such circumstances is the startling, but ap- 

 parently legitimate inference, that it must perforce be contem- 

 poraneous with the rock which enclosed it. 



Now, I will say at once that if the discoverers have been right 

 in only one of the numerous recorded instances, that an animal 

 was actually, and beyond all question, found under the conditions 

 which we are now considering, I do not see how we can escape 

 that inference, marvellous and incredible as it may appear. 



" There are," it is true *' stranger things in heaven and earth 

 than are dreamt of in our philosophy," and may be in the coal 

 measures particularly. 



There are many marvels in natural history which have only 

 recently been disclosed; the reviving powers for example of 

 some creatures, notably of the Eotifers, being now known to 

 exceed anything that was thought credible. There is the 

 important recollection, that a peculiar and leading characteristic 

 of toads and frogs is their power of sustaining vitality in a 



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