Cxii PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
for minute investigation. He considers these bodies to be the poly- 
pidoms of Bryozoa. Of the highly illustrated monograph by Prof. 
Heer of the insects of Ciningen, the first part, treating of the 
Beetles, has appeared ; and M. Bosquet has published an important 
paper on the Entomostraca of the chalk of Maéstricht. 
As regards geological interest, one of the most remarkable paleeon- 
tological discoveries of the year has been that of a reptile skull by Von 
Dechen in a nodule of ironstone from near Lebach, in the Saarbriick 
paleeozoic coal district. According to Goldfuss, who assigned the 
name Archigosaurus Decheni to the reptile thus found, it is a kind 
of crocodile-lizard, the skull not resembling that of the Emydosauri, 
which are nearest to it in geological date, but that of the true Croco- 
diles now existing. At the same time there are characters in the 
skull, which is 65 inches long, (Rhine measure,) showing it to par- 
take of the lizard. Regarding the skull to have formed the same 
proportion to the entire reptile as m the young crocodile, this speci- 
men would have belonged to an individual measuring 3 feet 8 inches.. 
Mr. Lyell stated the other evening, in a lecture at the Royal Insti- 
tution, on the foot-marks of a reptile in rocks of similar age in 
North America, that Dr. Falconer, now on his road to India, has 
seen the specimen and had no doubt of the skull having belonged 
to areptile. Here then we appear to have an example of the existence 
of crocodilian animals at the comparative early time when those 
remarkable plants flourished, parts of which grew upon, while others 
were drifted into, the districts in Europe and North America, where 
much of them, by subsequent chemical changes, forms the palzeo- 
zoic coal. 
Mr. Lyell, in the lecture above-mentioned, refers to the discovery 
by Dr. King, in 1844, of reptile foot-tracks upon sandstones in Penn- 
sylvania considered equivalent to part of the palzeozoic coal-measures 
of the British islands ; indeed the Greensburg sandstone is stated to 
occur in the very midst of the Appalachian coal-field, the main Pitts- 
burg seam of coal being worked 100 feet above it. Mr. Lyell visited 
the locality in company with Dr. King, and from all the evidence be- 
fore him, concludes that these foot-prints are those of a new reptile, 
and that the tracks are different from the Cheirotherium foot-prints 
of England and Germany. The average length of the print of the 
hind-foot is 54 inches, and of the fore-foot 44 inches. The fore and 
the hind feet follow each other in pairs very closely, there bemg an 
interval of about one inch between them. Between each pair the 
distance is 6 to 8 inches, and between the two parallel lines of tracks 
there is about the same distance. : 
It would be useless before those now assembled in this room to 
point out the value of the evidence thus brought to bear upon the 
existence of reptiles at the date of the palzeozoic coal deposits ; foot- 
prints and other tracks and trails of animals upon the sands, and 
mud of various geological times bemg now acknowledged as im- 
portant aids in paleontological inquiries. Indeed, the muddy banks 
of tidal estuaries in various parts of the world, particularly if there 
be much difference in vertical height between spring and neap tides, 
