in the Neighbourhood of Edinburgh. 215 



the " View of the present state of Derbyshire" (vol. i. p. 200), written by Pilking- 

 ton in the year 1789. The writer not only affirms that a small alligator was found 

 entire in the black marble of Ashford, but he also adds that another specimen, the 

 tail and back of a crocodile, had been discovered in the same locality, and had met 

 with preservation in a cabinet at Brussels. 



But it is time to advert to statements better verified. 



In the year 1793, the Rev. David Ure wrote his History of Rutherglen (a most 

 interesting work), in which it is certain that he discovered part of a jaw and teeth, 

 which, from the drawing given of them (plate 19 of his work), are referable to the 

 Megalichthys. They are said to have been found among schist in the quarries of 

 of Philipshill, and in the till above coal at Stonelaw. (See p. 330 of the work). Other 

 remarkable teeth will also be found described in his work. 



In the year 1830, Dr Fleming published an account of scales, and of a tooth 

 which evidently belonged to the Megalichthys. They were found in the yellow sand- 

 stone of Drumdryan quarry to the south of Cupar, and in the red sandstone of Clash- 

 binnie near Errol in Perthshire (Edinburgh Journal of Natural and Geographical 

 Science, vol. iii. p. 81.) 



During the same year, viz. in a. d. 1830, Mr Lyell, in his Principles of Geology, 

 states, that the Rev. Vernon Harcourt discovered in the mountain limestone of 

 Northumberland a saurian vertebra. Whether this relic may be referred, or not, to 

 the Megalichthys, remains to be determined. 



In December 1833 my discovery took place of the Megalichthys of Burdiehouse. 



Also in 1833, there was figured in the Fossil Flora of Professor Lindley and 

 Mr Hutton some remarkable relics, which, under an impression, acknowledged at 

 the time to be a very dubious one, that they might be identified with some fungus, 

 suggested the name of Polyporites Bowmanni. They were discovered by J. E. Bow- 

 man, Esq., of the Court near Wrexham, among the ejected shale of a coal-pit near 

 the entrance of the vale of Llangollen in the County of Denbigh (Fossil Flora, 

 plate 65). Although the writers of the Fossil Flora have proposed the name of 

 Polyporites Bowmanni, indicative of a vegetable fungus, it is with proper caution re- 

 marked, that " it is a matter of great doubt whether these relics actually belong to 

 the vegetable kingdom ;■" and they admit with Mr Bowman, that one of his specimens 

 " might be taken for the scale of a fish, or of some great saurian reptile." Now I 

 have little or no doubt whatever in my mind, that these relics are the round scales 

 of the Megalichthys. It is stated at the close of the communication, that it may be 

 worth considering " whether the Carpolithes umbonatus of Sternberg, referred with 

 doubt to Cyclopteris by Adolphe Brongniart, may not also be something of a si- 

 milar nature. 1 ' 



In 1834, Mr Witham of Lartington obtained from the limestone of East Calder 

 some scales of the Megalichthys. Mr Robison procured some teeth from Greenside, 

 near Glasgow, of the Megalichthys falcatus (Agass.), and Lord Greenock made the 

 highly interesting discovery, that the remains of the Megalichthys were entombed in 

 a seam of coal and bituminous shale at Stoneyhill, near Musselburgh, along with 

 various other relics. 



