The Medals of Creation, Volumes 1 and 2 / First Lessons in Geology and the Study of Organic Remains

by Gideon Algernon Mantell

The Archegosaurus is closely allied to the Labyrinthodonts;[706] and, in the words of Professor Owen,[707] it is "essentially Batrachian, and most nearly allied to the perennibranchiate, or lowest or most fish-like of that Order of Reptiles."

[706] We may remark that in the opinion of Dr. Goldfuss and Von Meyer (loc. cit.) the Labyrinthodon and the Archegosaurus are saurian forms connecting the Crocodiles and the Lizards, and representing in the ancient fauna an arrested or "permanent larva-condition of the loricated reptiles, as the sirens do among the recent batrachians." Professor Owen’s estimation of the affinities of these genera is stated above, and in the note at p. 55, Geol. Journ. vol. iv. part ii.

[707] Quart. Geol. Journ. vol. ix. p. 69.

Parabatrachus Colei.—Under this appellation Professor Owen has lately described (Quart. Geol. Journ. vol. ix. p. 67, pl. ii. fig. 1,) a batrachoid fossil, consisting of cranial and maxillary bones with teeth, probably from the shale of the Glasgow coal-field, at Carluke, Lanarkshire. The slab of coal-shale in which the specimen is imbedded contains also a large scale of the Holoptychius (see [p. 618]).

DENDRERPETON ACADIANUM.

Dendrerpeton Acadianum.[708] (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. 1853, pp. 58-67, plates ii. and iii.)—The remains of a reptile and a land-shell, resembling a Pupa, were discovered in 1852, by Sir C. Lyell and Mr. J. W. Dawson, in the interior of an erect stamp of a fossil tree (Sigillaria), in the coal-measures at the South Joggins cliffs, Nova Scotia. These remains were fully described by Professor Jeffries Wyman, of Harvard University, U. S., and Professor Owen in the Appendix to the Memoir by Sir C. Lyell and Mr. Dawson, in the Journal of the Geological Society, vol. ix. Some of the bones were recognised as having a near resemblance to those of the recent Menobranchus and Menopoma (Perennibranchiate Batrachians, inhabiting North American fresh-waters); the sculptured cranial bones are analogous to those of the Labyrinthodon and Archegosaurus; and the teeth have a Labyrinthodontoid structure: numerous, small, concentrically striated scutes, of an irregular oval shape, accompany the bones and teeth.

[708] The Tree-reptile of Acadia (Acadia being the ancient Indian name for Nova Scotia).

Lign. 244. Archegosaurus Dechenii. ¹/₂ nat. size.
Coal Formation. Saarbrück.