Ch. XXV.] AIR BEEATHEES IN THE COAL. 401 



and rain-spots, with the signs of the trickling of Avater on a wet, sandy- 

 beach ; all confirming the conclusion derived from the footprints, that the 

 quadrupeds belonged to air-breathers, and not to aquatic races. 



In 1852 the first osseous remains of a reptile were obtained from the 

 coal-measures of An:ierica by Mr. Dawson and myself. We detected 

 them in the interior of one of the erect Sigillarise before alluded to as of 

 such frequent occurrence in Nova Scotia. The tree w^is about two feet 

 in diameter, and consisted, as usual, of an external cylinder of bark, con- 

 verted into coal, and an internal stony axis of black sandstone, or rather 

 mud and sand stained black by carbonaceous matter, and cemented to- 

 gether with fragments of wood into a rock. These fragments were in 

 the state of charcoal, and seem to have fallen to the bottom of the hollow 

 tree while it was rotting aw^ay. The skull, jaws, and vertebrae of a rep- 

 tile, probably about 2 J feet iu length [Dendrerpeton Acadiamun, Owen), 

 were scattered through this stony matrix. The shell also of a Pupa, the 

 fii'st pulmoniferous mollusk ever met with in the coal, was observed in the 

 same stony mass. Dr. Wyman, of Boston, pronounced the reptile to be 

 alHed in structure to Menohranchus and Menopoma, species of batra- 

 chians, now inhabiting the North American rivers. The same view was 

 afterwards confirmed by Prof. Owen, who also pointed out the resem- 

 blance of the cranial plates to those seen in the skull of Archegosaurus 

 and Lahyrinthodon.^' Whether the creature had crept into the hollow 

 tree while its top was still open to the air, or whether it was washed in 

 with mud during a flood, or in whatever other manner it entered, must 

 be matter of conjecture. 



Footprints of two reptiles of different sizes had previously been ob- 

 served by Dr. Harding and Dr. Gesner on ripple-marked flags of the 

 lower coal-measures in Nova Scotia, evidently made by quadrupeds walk- 

 ing on the ancient beach, or out of the water, just as the recent Meno- 

 poma is sometimes observed to do. 



In 1853 Prof. Owen announced the first discovery of fossil reptilian 

 remains in the British Coal-Measures ; and, in 1854, the same osteologist 

 described a " sauroid batrachian," of the Lahyrinthodon family, obtained 

 by Mr. Dawson, from the coal of Pictou, in Nova Scotia. 



Thus in ten years (between 1844 and 1854) the skeletons or bones of 

 no less than seven carboniferous reptiles, referred to five genera, were 

 brought to fight ; to say nothing of numerous I'eptilian footprints, some 

 of them too large to belong to the same species as the bones. 



Rarity of vertebrate and invertebrate Air-breathers in Coal. 



Before the earliest date above mentioned (1844), it w^as common to 

 hear geologists insisting on the non-existence of vertebrate aniirals of a 

 higher grade than fishes in the Coal, or iu any rocks older than the Per- 

 mian. Even now, it may be said, that we have scarcely made any pro- 



* Geol. Quart. Journ. vol. ix. p. 58. 

 26 



