Now385:| GHORGE BGAUR'S LIFE WAND. WRITINGS. 21 
the subject never relaxed, and some of his latest papers were 
written in a discussion of the subject with Professor Cope. 
‘‘In the same year above mentioned, 1886, Dr. Baur became 
interested in the morphology of the vertebral column, and he 
published a paper of considerable length in the Lzologisches 
Centralblatt of that year, stating his conclusions. He gave his 
adherence to the opinion of Cope, who held that the vertebral 
centrum in all the Amniota has developed from the pleuro- 
centrum, an element which is found distinct in the Stegocephali. 
He found confirmation of his views in the vertebral axis of the 
Pelycosaurian reptiles, in Sphenodon, certain lizards, birds, and 
even mammals. He advocated the same views in one of his 
latest papers. it ) 
“Inthe American Naturalist for May, 1891, occurs an impor- 
tant paper by Dr. Baur on the reptiles known as the Dinosauria. 
In a characteristic manner he gives the history and the litera- 
ture of the subject and his own conclusions. His opinion was 
that ‘the Dinosauria do not exist.’ He believed that this 
group is an unnatural one, and is made up of three special 
groups of archosaurian reptiles which have no close relation to 
one another. 
“Two of Dr. Baur’s most important later efforts are probably 
one entitled ‘ The Stegocephali,’ a phylogenetic study published 
in the Anatomischer Anzeiger for March, 1896, and one, a joint 
paper with Dr. E. C. Case, having the title ‘On the Morphology 
of the Skull of the Pelycosauria and the Origin of the Mam- 
malia, and appearing in the Anatomischer Anzeiger, 1897, 
pp. 109-20. In the first-mentioned paper Dr. Baur compares 
the skeletal structure of the Stegocephali with that of various 
fishes, and comes to the conclusion that the Batrachia took 
their origin from the Crossopterygia, rather than from the 
Dipnoi. The second paper was based on the fine materials 
collected by Dr. Case in the Permian formation in Texas. The 
authors concluded, on the one hand, that the Pelycosauria are 
closely related to the Rhynchocephalia, and that, on the other 
hand, they could not have been the ancestors of mammals. 
The authors were inclined to regard the Gomphodontia as 
the ancestors of the mammals.” 
