in the Neighborhood of Edinburgh. 193 



resemblance to those of the Gavial of the Ganges. (See Plate 

 VIII. fig. 1 .) Nor did the internal structure of such teeth as were 

 discovered forbid the supposition. This is shewn in the annexed 

 figure, which represents the section of a tooth, which had been 



found broken longitudinally: — a repre- 

 sents a lower and outer portion of the 

 tooth, while b is its reverse side, in 

 which an internal cavity is observable, 

 at present filled up with earthy sub- 

 stance, not unlike the cavity observa- 

 ble in the teeth of large reptiles, which is supplied with a re- 

 placing tooth. 



The larger longitudinal fragment of the same tooth is repre- 

 sented by c, in which the counterpart of the same internal cavity 

 is discernible. 



It is true that this internal structure was not a decisive mark 

 of the animal having been a reptile, yet, when the immense size 

 of some of the teeth subsequently discovered was also taken into 

 consideration (see Plate IX.), one of which was 3f inches in 

 length, and when no extinct animal coeval with or earlier than 

 the new red sandstone formation had been hitherto recorded as 

 possessing such immense teeth, saurian reptiles alone excepted, 

 the reference of the teeth to such animals was, at least, the most 

 ready supposition, and justifiable. 



In the second place, various scales were collected. These 

 were of two kinds. 



The first of these comprised the remarkable structures which 

 are represented in Plate VIII. fig. 2. It is not the first time 

 that these scales have been discovered in coal-fields. They have 

 even been figured as fungi belonging to the vegetable world. In 

 the present instance, it may be supposed that these substances 

 had, in the limestone, met with a better state of preservation, as 

 it was impossible not to be struck with their internal cancellated 

 structure, which forbad any supposition but that they were osse- 



VOL. XIII. part i. b b 



