IN THE RED SANDSTONE OP POTTSYILLE. 
!) 
of the genus Anisopns allies them to CheirotJierium and the figures of Dr. Deane, although 
evidently different, still have some analogy to the same genus. 
These interesting discoveries had not long been made before the scientific world was 
informed of equally important quadrupedal imprints having been observed in the rocks of 
the Coal Measures, a Formation considerably lower in the series. In October, 1843, 
Sir Charles Lyell, in a paper communicated to the American Journal of Science, stated 
the fact that Mr. Logan had discovered in the “rippled marked sandstones” of Horton 
Bluff, Nova Scotia, “ foot-steps which appear to Mr. Owen to belong to some unknown 
species of reptile, constituting the first indications of the reptilian class known in the car¬ 
boniferous rocks,” vol. 45, page 358. Von Meyer, early in 1844, added to the Fauna of 
the coal Formation a new reptile which he called Apateon pedestris, the complete skeleton 
of which he obtained at Miinster-Appel, in Rhenish Bavaria. Towards the latter part of 
the same year, Dr. King, of Greensburg, Penna., published an account of the imprints 
discovered by him in Westmoreland county, in the sandstones of the Coal Measures, near 
to the surface of that formation, (No. 13, Penna. Survey.) This appeared in the Proceed¬ 
ings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, December 17, 1844. These “ Foot-marks con¬ 
sisted of those of a bird and two “ Saurian reptiles ,” and were stated to be “near 800 feet 
beneath the topmost stratum of the coal formation.” These were subsequently visited 
and examined by Sir Charles Lyell, who considered them to belong to the genus Cheiro- 
iherium . Prof. Hitchcock described Thcnaropus heterodactylus of Dr. King under the 
impression of its being Batrachian. The tracks, I think, were made by a Sauroid animal. 
Subsequently to these discoveries, in 1847, Prof. Von Dechen observed in the Coal For¬ 
mation of the Saarbruck district several remains of a peculiar genus, which Dr. Goldfuss 
described under the name Archegosaurus Decheni , and at the same time stated that he 
considered it as “a crocodilian animal, forming a transition to the lizards,in consequence 
of the presence of a parietal foramen.” After this, Dr. Goldfuss added two other species 
to this genus, A. medins and A. minor. The largest of the three, the Decheni , was sup¬ 
posed to be about three feet six inches long, and on a further examination he considered 
the genus to belong more to the Labyrinthodonts , (Cheirotherium,) of the Trias than to the 
crocodiles. “ The peculiarities of the skeleton correspond to those of the skin, which 
consisted of long, narrow, wedge-shaped, tile-like, horny scales, arranged in rows, which 
meet on the ventral side in Archegosaurus Decheni at right angles, in A. medius in a curve.” 
Von Meyer considered that the Archegosaurus was nearly allied to the Labyrinthodonts. 
which Sir Richard Owen had considered as Balrachians. These Von Meyer was now 
inclined to believe were rather Saurians. It is said that Owen is lately disposed to con¬ 
sider the Labyrinthodonts as Saurians arrested in their development; page 55.* In Janu¬ 
ary of the present year, a memoir on the discovery of fossil foot-steps by Captain Brick- 
cnden, and of a reptile, by Patrick Duff, Esq., and described by Dr. Mantell, was presented 
to the Geological Society of London. The specimen discovered by Mr. Duff was “ a 
small four-footed reptile, not exceeding six or seven inches. A distinct impression of a 
* M. Jager says that the Pygopterus Indus of Agassiz is not a fish, but a reptile, and the same as Arcliegc- 
saurus Decheni. (Geol. Soc. Journal, vol. 7, p. 34.) 
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