The Coal Measures Amphibia of North America

by Roy Lee Moodie

[CHAPTER II.]

HISTORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF AMPHIBIA IN THE COAL MEASURES.

Sir William Logan, in 1841, discovered in the Coal Measures of Horton's Bluff, Nova Scotia, some tracks of Amphibia which he carried to London and which Sir Richard Owen pronounced to be undoubted "reptilian" tracks. This fact was published in 1842 ([380]) and was the first recorded evidence of the occurrence of land vertebrates in the Carboniferous rocks of the world. To these tracks Sir William Dawson later gave the name of Hylopus logani.

Two years later Dr. Gergens ([291]) wrote a letter to Professor Bronn, the founder and one of the editors of the "Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, Geologic und Paleontologie," in regard to an important discovery in the Carboniferous rocks of Germany. The letter is of such exceptional interest in connection with the history of the fossil Amphibia that it is given here:

"In dem Brandschiefer von Münsterappel in Rhein-Bayern habe ich in vorigen Jahre einen Salamander aufgefunden und Hrn. H. v. Meyer in Frankfurt zur näheren Untersuchung und Beschreibung übergeben;—Gehört dieser Schiefer der Kohlen-Formation?—in diesem Falle ware der Fund in anderen Hinsicht interessant."

The form discovered by Dr. Gergens and described by Hermann von Meyer as an amphibian is a little puzzling as to its characters. Miall ([449, p. 183]) says that the remains are too imperfect for close definition. The form, as figured, resembles an immature branchiosaurian, as one is at once reminded, from an examination of Von Ammon's Branchiosaurus caducus ([7, Taf. IV, fig. 1]). In 1844 Dr. Alfred King ([356]) announced the discovery of "reptilian" footprints in the Carboniferous of Pennsylvania.

The next announcement of fossil Amphibia was made by Goldfuss ([296]), who in 1847 described the famous Archegosaurus from the upper Carboniferous of Germany, from the remains which had as long ago as 1777 been regarded as a fish. Two years later Isaac Lea ([371]) announced to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, through Buckland, the discovery of footprints in the old Red Sandstone (Mauch Chunk) of Pennsylvania. These objects occur not rarely in the Mauch Chunk shales, which are of upper Mississippian age. Barrell ([21, p. 460]) records the finding of imperfect tracks in the same beds, and Rogers (Geology of Pennsylvania, pt. II, 1856, p. 831) records three unnamed varieties from 2,200 feet below the top of the Mauch Chunk. Branson ([50]) has recorded the finding of other amphibian footprints from the Mississippian of Giles County, Virginia.

Lyell and Dawson ([396]), in 1853, read a paper before the Geological Society of London, in which they announced the discovery of remains of Amphibia in the Coal Measures of North America, although Dawson had previously, in 1850, discovered the skull of Baphetes planiceps Owen, which was not described until the latter part of 1853 ([509]). The specimen had lain unnoticed in the collection of the Geological Society for more than two years. When, however, the announcement was made by Lyell and Dawson of the discovery of Amphibia in the Coal Measures of Nova Scotia, so much interest was excited that the skull, now known as Baphetes planiceps, was brought to light by the president or secretary and was described ([509]) by Sir Richard Owen. The only other known evidences of land vertebrates in the Paleozoic of North America, up to this time, had been the footprints described by Lea and King from the Mississippian (Mauch Chunk) and Pennsylvanian of Pennsylvania. The specimens presented to the Geological Society of London by Lyell and Dawson were found at the South Joggins, Nova Scotia, and consisted of scutes, a few limb bones, a fragment of a jaw, and a few vertebræ, a part of which were associated. The remains were found quite accidentally and unexpectedly by them in the petrified trunks of ancient Sigillariæ which were exposed on the coast. Dr. Jeffries Wyman, of Harvard College, had examined these remains in the United States and had pronounced ([638]) them to be amphibian, comparing them with similar elements in Menobranchus. On the arrival of the specimens in England they were submitted to Sir Richard Owen, who suggested the name ([514]) Dendrerpeton acadianum and compared the remains with Archegosaurus. At the same meeting of the London Geological Society, Owen read a paper on a small amphibian ([508]) from the British Carboniferous which he named Parabatrachus. Subsequent discoveries have shown, however, that this form belongs among the fishes. At the meeting of the Geological Society held in the latter part of the same year Owen announced ([509]) further discoveries in the Nova Scotia coal beds.

Hermann von Meyer ([436]), in 1857, described numerous stegocephalian remains from the upper Carboniferous of Germany. Dr. Jeffries Wyman, in the same year, described ([639]) a new form of amphibian from Linton, Ohio. This form he called Raniceps lyelli, but as the name Raniceps had been preoccupied by Cuvier for a genus of gadid fishes, Wyman later (1868) changed the name to Pelion. This was the first form to be described from the locality at Linton, which has since yielded the remains of half a hundred species.

Dawson ([204]), in 1859, made a further contribution to the fauna of Nova Scotia by the description of Hylonomus and other species of Dendrerpeton from the South Joggins deposits. Huxley ([331]), in 1862, described the genera Loxomma and Pholidogaster from the Carboniferous of Scotland. The same year Owen made a further contribution ([514]) to the fauna of the Nova Scotia beds, and Huxley ([332]) discussed the anatomy of Anthracosaurus from Scotland. Marsh ([404]), in the next year, described, as an enaliosaurian, the interesting Eosaurus acadianus from the Nova Scotia Coal Measures, basing the species on two vertebræ, apparently from the dorsal region. The vertebræ resemble the stereospondylous type, and Huxley ([332]) called attention to the similarity of these vertebræ to those of Anthracosaurus.