Chap. XII.] GENERAL VIEW OF COAL DEPOSITS. 
303 
animal have been found in the coal-field of the Forest of Dean *. According to 
Professor Owen, these last-mentioned footmarks might have "been produced by the 
wriggling movements of a Salamandroid quadruped. They very much resemble 
some of the impressions called Steropezoum, Anomcepus,andTria3nopus by Hitch- 
cock- but "of these/' Owen adds, "no more definite idea is entertained than a 
vague one of their having been produced by a kind of great Newt-like Reptile." 
A great accession to the fossil fauna of the Carboniferous period has recently 
been made in Ireland. Professor Huxley, who in the year 1862 described a re- 
markable Labyrinthodont from the Lanarkshire coal-field of Scotland t, under 
the name of Anthracosaurus Russelli, has recently described no less than eight 
distinct genera of Labyrinthodont Amphibia from the coal-field of Kilkenny, 
with indications of others. These are associated with the fossil Fishes Mega- 
lichthys, Gyracanthus, and a new genus of large Ganoids, Campylopleuron. Of 
these eight genera of Labyrinthodonts, three, viz. Keraterpeton, Urocordylus, 
and Lepterpeton, were salamandroid animals, provided with long tails and well- 
developed fore and hind limbs ; in Urocordylus the superior and inferior spines 
of the caudal vertebras are so prolonged as to leave no doubt that the tail was 
a powerful instrument of propulsion. Of another and probably similar form, 
Erpetocephalus, only the skull has been discovered. In two other genera, Ophi- 
derpeton and Dolichosoma, the greatly elongated and eel-like body appears to 
have been devoid of limbs. Ophiderpeton attained a length of more than three 
feet. Of the seventh genus only the hinder part of the body has yet been found ; 
it is a much larger animal, which probably attained a length of not less than 
six or seven feet, and resembles, if it be not identical with, the Anthracosaurus 
of the Glasgow coal-field. The eighth, Ichthyerpeton, has a fish-like body, with 
very short and thick hind limbs. The skeletons of these animals are all well 
ossified. Several of the genera certainly, and all probably, were provided with a 
ventral armour, resembling that of Archegosaurus and Pholidogaster. 
Some of Professor Huxley's conclusions are most important, since they tell us 
that one Irish coal-pit has yielded in a few months more genera of vertebrate 
animals higher than Fishes than are known from all the vast American coal- 
fields, and nearly as many as have been found in all Europe. This discovery 
shows also that the Labyrinthodont type of Reptiles (as Huxley says) "was 
abundantly represented in the Carboniferous epoch by animals with well-ossified 
vertebras, with no trace of persistent branchiae, and to all appearance just as 
highly organized as their congeners in the Trias." 
The Coal-field of Edinburghshire also has yielded two Labyrinthodont Rep- 
tiles — Loxomma Allmani, Huxley, and Pholidogaster pisciformis, Huxley. 
In the earliest wide and general diffusion of a copious and peculiar 
vegetation previously spoken of, we recognize the prevalence of the equable 
temperature and similar conditions over various latitudes which must, in 
my opinion, have also existed, to a great extent, in the preceding periods. 
The specific identity, also, of many of the Brachiopods of the Lower 
Carboniferous rocks situated at enormous distances in latitude from one 
another (e. g. from the Arctic circle to the south of the Equator) is an 
additional and striking proof of the general uniformity of temperature and 
marine conditions during this epoch. The discovery also by Livingstone, 
on the banks of the Zambesi, in South Africa, of coal strata the fossil Plants 
* This specimen is in the Museum of the Geological Society, and was sent to me by the Eev. 
Charles H. Bromby. t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xix. p. 56. 
