Dawson—New Carboniferous Batrachians of Nova Scotia. 441 
with remains was obtained, and its contents will form the sub- 
ject of the present communication. Two others were extracted 
for me by the kindness of Mr. Hill, superintendent of the 
Cumberland Mine, but proved to be filled merely with sand- 
stone without animal remains. ‘This is an illustration of the 
fact that, even in this bed, only certain trees remained open 
long enough to become burial places of land animals. | 
All the remains found in these singular repositories are those 
of air-breathing animals, except certain worm-like bodies of 
uncertain nature, which Mr. Scudder suggests may be remains 
appendages, more akin to those of modern lizards than to those 
of batrachians. Again, though we know from the footprints 
of Sauropus unguifer,+ found in Cumberland County at no great 
distance from the Joggins, and from those of Sauropus Sydne 
und in Cape Breton, as well as from the osseous remains — 
the alligator-like Baphetes, that there were large terrestrial 
byrinthodonts in the coal swamps of Nova Scotia, these 
Were of course too bulky to fall into the erect Sigillariz ; con- 
oy the remains found are those of the smaller species 
nly, 
The state of preservation of the specimens is also peculiar. 
All the bones of each specimen are sure to be present; but 
t 
n 
vegetable fragments on which they lay, so that the skeletons 
are usually disarticulated, and the bones, though individually 
ect, are so entangled in the matrix that it 1s impossible to 
Uncover the whole of them. In other, though rare cases, the 
and its soft parts, 
before they were finally covered up, he bones are often muc 
allen i 
h 
* By Huzle Geol 
uxley, Von Meyer and Cope. sg og} 
_ $ Acadian Geology, > 358. 
