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

In 1842, the late Mr. Channing Pearce described, under the name of Belemnoteuthis antiquus, a naked (destitute of a shell,) cephalopod, which occurs in immense numbers in certain beds of the Oxford clay, especially at Christian Malford, in Wiltshire. This animal has at the lower apical part a conical osselet of a horny substance, and fibrous structure, enclosing a chambered siphunculated shell, which becomes gradually thinner at the upper part, and forms a cup-like receptacle, in which is placed the ink-bag. The soft body of an elongated oval form, with a pair of lateral palleal fins, two large sessile eyes, and with eight uncinated arms and a pair of long tentacula, are preserved in a more or less distinct and perfect state in several specimens that have lately been discovered. Mr. Channing Pearce, Mr. Cunnington, and other collectors of these interesting remains, were convinced that this cephalopod was entirely distinct from the animal to which the Belemnite belonged.

In 1844, Professor Owen laid before the Royal Society "A description of certain Belemnites preserved with a great proportion of their soft parts in the Oxford clay, at Christian Malford, Wilts."[84] In this memoir (for which one of the royal medals of the Society was awarded) the author describes as the soft parts of the Belemnite the remains of the animal which Mr. Channing Pearce had two years previously shown to belong to a different genus (Belemnoteuthis). Belying on the correctness of Professor Owen's views, I gave an abstract of this memoir in my "Medals of Creation," and stated that belemnites had been discovered with the osselet, receptacle, and ink-bag, in their natural position, and with remains of the mantle, body, fins, eyes, and the tentacula, with their horny rings and hooks.[85]

[84] Philos. Trans. Part I. 1844. p. 65.

[85] Medals of Creation, vol. ii. p. 467.

The discovery by my son (Mr. Reginald Neville Mantell) of some remarkably perfect specimens of belemnites in the Oxford clay, exposed in the railway works on which he was engaged, near Trowbridge, in Wilts, led me to examine the structure of the Belemnoteuthis with more attention than I had hitherto done, as well as the evidence adduced by Professor Owen in proof that the fossil osselet, the Belemnite, belonged to the same genus of cephalopoda. I found that no specimen had been obtained in which the phragmocone, or terminal chambered part of the Belemnoteuthis (of Pearce), was situated in the alveolus of a Belemnite; but Professor Owen having assumed that the osselet of the former must have originally been protected by a rostrum, or guard, described the soft parts as belonging to the animal of the Belemnite, conceiving that the phragmocone of the Belemnoteuthis was that of a Belemnite that had slipped out of the guard.

In a communication to the Royal Society, in 1848, I demonstrated how utterly at variance with the facts were these conclusions, and pointed out the essential distinctive characters that separated the two extinct genera, so far as the specimens then discovered would warrant.[86] Other illustrative examples of the Belemnite have since been obtained; and in a supplementary paper read before the Royal Society, February 14th, of the present year (1850), I have stated what appears to me to be the extent of our present knowledge of the organization of the Belemnite. I subjoin an abstract of that paper, which embodies the result of an examination of many hundred specimens of Belemnites and Belemnoteuthites. The annexed outline, or diagram, shows the known structures of the Belemnite; of the soft parts of the animal, a few imperfect carbonaceous traces, apparently of the mantle, around and between the shelly processes of the upper part of the phragmocone, are the only vestiges I have been able to detect. The most perfect Belemnite hitherto discovered consists of,

[86] Philos. Trans. 1848, p. 171.

1. An external Capsule (e) which invested the osselet or sepiostaire, and extending upwards, constituted the external sheath of the receptacle.

2. The Osselet, characterized by its fibrous radiated structure, terminating distally in a solid rostrum or guard (i), having an alveolus, or conical hollow (g), to receive the apical portion of the chambered phragmocone, and expanding proximally into a thin cup, which became confluent with the capsule, and formed the receptacle (b, b,) for the viscera.