436 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
if either the surface had been somewhat fimi, or as if the body of the animal had been 
partly water-borne. In one place only is there a distinct mark of the whole foot, as if 
the animal had exerted an unusual pressure in turning or stopping suddenly. The im- 
pressions are such as may have been made by some of the reptiles to be described in the 
sequel, as, for instance, by Bendrerpeton Acadianum. 
" Attention having been directed to such marks by these observations of Sir AVilliam 
Logan, several other discoveries of the same kind were subsequently made, in various 
parts of the province, and in dilFerent members of the Carboniferous system. The first 
of these, in order of time, was made in 1844, in beds of Red Sandstone and shale near 
Tatamagouche, in the eastern part of Nova Scotia, and belonging to the upper or newer 
members of the coal-measures. In examining these beds with the view of determining 
their precise geological age, Dr. Dawson found on the surface of some of them impres- 
sions of worm-burrows, rain-drops, and sun-cracks, and with these, two kinds of foot- 
prints, probably of reptilian animals. One kind consisted of marks, or rather scratches, 
as of three toes, and resembling somewhat the scratches made by the claws of a tortoise 
in creeping up a bank of stiff clay ; they were probably of the same nature and origin 
with those found by Logan at Horton. The others were of very different appearance. 
They consisted of two series of strongly -marked elongated impressions, without distinct 
marks of toes, in series four inches distant from each other, and with an intervening tail- 
mark. They seem to have been produced by an animal wading in soft mud, so that deep 
holes, rather than regular impressions, marked its footsteps, and that in the hind foot, 
the heel touched the surface, giving a plantigrade appearance to the tracks. 
" Shortly afterward, Dr. Harding, of Windsor, when examining a cargo of sandstone 
which had been lauded at that place from Parrsboro', found on one of the slabs a very 
distinct series of footprints each with four toes, and a trace of the fifth. The rocks at 
that place are probably of nearly the same age with those of Parrsboro'. Similar foot- 
prints are also stated to have been found by Dr. Gesner, at Parrsboro'. Dr. Dawson has 
since observed several instances of such impressions at the Joggins, at Horton, and near 
"Windsor; these examples showing that reptilian animals existed in no inconsiderable 
numbers throughout the coal-field of Nova Scotia, and from the beginning to the end of 
the Carboniferous period. On comparing these with one another, it will be observed 
that Logan's, Harding's, and one of mine are of similar general character, and may have 
been made by one kind of animal, which must have had the fore and hind feet nearly of 
equal size. The other belongs to a smaller animal, which probably travelled on longer 
limbs, more in the manner of an ordinary quadruped. These impressions are chiefly in- 
teresting as indicating the wide diffusion and abundance of the creatures producing them, 
and that they haunted tidal flats and muddy shores, perhaps emerging from the water 
that they might bask in the sun, or possibly searching for food among the rejectamenta 
of the sea, or of lagunes and estuaries." 
In 1851 Dr. Dawson discovered, in a large pile of rubbish, at the Albion 
Mines Eailway Station in some blocks of bard carboniferous sliale and 
earthy coal, scales, teeth, and coprolites. Observiug an object of larger 
size than usual at the edi^e of a block, be split the block opt^n and found a 
large flattened skull, which was dispatched to England, and after remain- 
ing a year or two as quietly in the Geological Society's collection as if in 
its original bed in the coal-mine, it was handed, in 1852, to Professor 
Owen, who described it in December, 1853, under the rame of Baplietes 
planiceps, or the "flat-headed diving animal," in allusion to the flatness of 
the creature's skull, and the possibility of its having been in the habit of 
diving : — 
" Of the general form and dimensions of Baphetes, the facts at present known do not 
enable us to say much. Its formidable teeth and strong maxillary bones show that it 
must have devoured animals of considerable size, probably the fishes whose remains arc 
found with it, or the smaller reptiles of the Coal. It must in short have been crocodilian, 
rather than frog-like, in its mode of life ; but whether, like the labyrinthodonts, it had 
strong limbs and a short body, or like the crocodiles, an elongated form and a powerful 
natatory tail, the remains do not decide. One of the limbs or a vertebra of the tail 
