A Pictorial Atlas of Fossil Remains, consisting of coloured illustrations selected from Parkinson's "Organic remains of a former world," and Artis's "Antediluvian phytology."

by Gideon Algernon Mantell

Figs. 6, & 7. Two views of a species of an extinct genus, the shells of which, though not chambered, are supposed to have been inhabited by Cephalopoda, like the recent Argonaut. The specimen (Bellerophon costatus, of Sowerby) is from the Mountain limestone of Derbyshire.[56]

[56] Ibid p. 477.

Figs. 8, & 9. An Ammonite with a contracted aperture, and three deep constrictions across the disk. From the Inferior oolite of Normandy.

Figs. 10, & 11. Two specimens of "Scaphites, or Boat-like Ammonite," of Mr. Parkinson. A remarkable cretaceous genus of extinct cephalopoda. The specimens figured are from the Lower chalk of Sussex (Scaphites costatus, of Mantell; S. equalis, of Sowerby).

Fig. 12. Cast of a spiral chambered shell, called Turrilite, of which many species occur in the lower cretaceous strata (Turrilites costatus, of Langius). The quarries of lower chalk at St. Catharine's Mount, near Rouen, in Normandy, have long been celebrated for the number and perfection of specimens of this elegant type of cephalopodous shells. The first known English examples of this genus, as well as of Scaphites, were discovered by me in the chalk marl, at Hamsey, near Lewes, in Sussex, in 1810. Several very fine specimens of a large species (Turrilites tuberculatus), some of which are more than two feet in length, have been obtained from the same strata. The tubercles on the casts of this species are the bases of strong spines. The siphunculus, in the state of a pyritous cast, is preserved in some examples.

Figs. 13 to 27. These figures all refer to a very curious group of fossils, termed Nummulites, from the supposed resemblance of some of the flat disks to a piece of money. The complexity of their internal structure, and the supposed resemblance of their organization to that of the true Cephalopoda, led to many erroneous opinions as to the nature of the originals. That eminent physiologist, Dr. W. B. Carpenter, has recently investigated the intimate structure of the whole group, and the results are given in a beautiful and masterly memoir in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London.[57] Dr. Carpenter has clearly shown that these fossils belong to the Foraminifera, and not, as some eminent naturalists have supposed, to the Bryozoa, or "Moss-corals." As the family to which they belong comprises a numerous assemblage of minute organic remains, many of which are delineated in the next plate (Plate LXII.), the reader is referred to the "Supplementary Notes," for a general description of the [Foraminifera], in which is given a restored figure of the supposed living animal of the Nummulite, from Dr. Carpenter's memoir.

[57] No. 21, for February 1850. "On the Microscopic Structure of Nummulina, Orbitolites and Orbitoides."

Fig. 13. The usual appearance of the common species of Nummulite (Nummulina lævigata). From Egypt.

Fig. 14. A specimen rubbed down, and exposing the internal cellular structure.

Fig. 15. An example in which the outer investment is partly removed.