196 Dr Hibbert on the Limestone of Burdiehouse 



glass, M. Agassiz informed me that the suspicion which he had 

 entertained was still farther confirmed. 



The conclusion eventually drawn from this examination was, 

 that the large teeth, the scales, and many of the bones, did not 

 belong to a saurian reptile, but to an immense sauroid fish. 



NOTES TO SECTION VIII. 



It had been long known among the workmen of the limestone quarry of Burdie- 

 house how anxious I had been for the discovery of any bones to which the teeth 

 might be found to actually adhere ; which anxiety arose solely from the wish that some 

 additional light might be thrown upon the saurian question. Now, from some cause 

 or other (which I will not seek to explain), relics of such importance as these never 

 came into the possession of the Royal Society, although a price would have been ad- 

 vanced, even on my own account, should the Royal Society have refused to purchase 

 them, fully equal to the sum any other individuals would have paid. Such a value, 

 indeed, did I at one time place upon the discovery of teeth thus found attached, that 

 for such a prize I would have been content that they should have been rated at the 

 highest market price which our best dentists actually receive for teeth belonging to 

 the Homo sapiens of Linnaeus. 



I had flattered myself that the line of conduct chalked out by myself during this 

 investigation had been sufficiently appreciated. As I had publicly expressed my 

 wish that some individual who had made zoology more a particular object of his 

 study than myself, would undertake the business of describing the osseous remains 

 discovered at Burdiehouse, and, as the specimens in the possession of the Royal So- 

 ciety of Edinburgh were open for consultation to every member of it equally with 

 myself, and, indeed, to every scientific individual capable of forming a judgment up- 

 on an intricate question of comparative anatomy, I thus conceived that the possibi- 

 lity of any feeling of rivalry or jealousy being excited, was entirely out of the ques- 

 tion. 



It was not, however, at Burdiehouse alone, but in other localities near Edinburgh, 

 that sauroidrelics had been discovered, of no less importance towards the elucidation of 

 truth. They constituted private property; and, of course, I had no right whatever to 

 make any complaint that I was not permitted to avail myself of the information which 

 they were calculated to impart. I am only entitled to express some little regret that no 

 account of them had ever been published ; otherwise, I might have been enabled much 

 sooner to have reconsidered the opinion which I had expressed on the saurian ques- 

 tion, and to have acknowledged my obligation for the correction of any error into 

 which I might have fallen ;— an acknowledgment whic I have not hesitated to pay 

 to M. Agassiz. 



