280 PALAEONTOLOGY. 



which suggested the generic name (bathus, deep ; gnathos, 

 jaw). The precise mode of implantation of the teeth is not 

 described. 



The fossil was discovered at a depth of 21 feet from the 

 surface, in a red sandstone supposed to be of the same age as 

 that of Connecticut, so remarkable for the various and singular 

 foot-marks, referable, some to reptiles, and others to large 

 birds. 



Genus Protorosaurus, Von Meyer. 



Sp. P rotor osaurus Speneri, Yon M. — The first fossil Saurian 

 on record is that which marks the circumstance by its generic 

 name, and honours its describer by the specific one. The 

 slab of "copper-slate" from the Permian beds of Eisenach in 

 Thuringia, displaying, either in fossils or impressions, the 

 skull, vertebral column, and bones of the fore foot of the 

 reptile in question, was figured and described by Speiier, a 

 physician at Berlin, in 1710.* The original specimen is now 

 in the museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons, London, 

 where it forms part of the Hunterian series of fossils.f It 

 was obtained from a copper-mine near Eisenach, at a depth of 

 100 feet from the surface. 



A second specimen, shewing the two fore-limbs, a hind 

 limb, and part of the trunk, was described by Link in 17184 

 Cuvier gives copies of portions of two other specimens in his 

 Ossemens Fossiles.§ 



The healthy, honest mind of Spener is shewn by the con- 

 clasions which he formed from the state of preservation of 

 his specimen — " omnia, enim, minutissima, etiam apophyses, 

 spinas," etc., — and from its association with equally well- 

 preserved remains of fishes, and even of the delicate leaves of 

 plants — against the notions of those fossils merely simulating, 



* Miscellanea Berolinensia, 4to, i., p. 99, figs. 24 and 25. 



f " Catalogue of Fossil Keptiles and Fishes," 4to, 1854, p. 80, No. 308. 



i Acta Eruditorum, 1718, p. 188, pi. ii. 



§ Ed. 8vo, 1836, pi. ccxxxvii., figs. 1 and 2. 



