Note on the pelvis of Ornithopsis / by H.G. Seeley.

  • Seeley, H. G. (Harry Govier), 1839-1909.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Note on the pelvis of Ornithopsis / by H.G. Seeley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    [From the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society for August 1889.] Note on the Pelvis of Ornithoi’sis. By Prof. H. G. Seeley, F.R.S., F.G.S. In 1874, on the occasion of my first visit to Evebury to examine the fossil reptiles of the Oxford Clay, Mr. Alfred N. Leeds, and Mr. Charles Leeds, M.A., mentioned to me the following circum- stance. A well had been sunk at the gas-works at Peterborough, which, at the depth of 36 feet, came down upon a number of bones of a large terrestrial reptile. It is well known that to the west of Peterborough the Combrash and Lower Oolites rise from beneath the base of the Oxford Clay. The well passed through 24 feet of blue clay, which Mr. Leeds had no difficulty in recognizing by its fossils as typical Oxford Clay. Beneath the clay were 12 feet of grey sand, nearly white in places, and fine-grained, but it was uncertain whether the bedding which it showed was current-bedding. Beneath the sand were the bones resting on the underlying clay. Mr. Charles and Mr. Alfred N. Leeds were fully aware that the remainder of the skeleton was probably on the spot, and made overtures to the Gas Company to allow them to drive a horizontal shaft in the hope of finding it. The hones found remained exposed to the weather for some time till they began to crumble beyond recognition and ceased to be interesting, when they passed into the hands of the most enthusiastic and able explorers who have worked the Oxford Clay. These gentlemen had the bones still in the matrix when I first saw them in an outbuilding, and I was impressed by the grey sand as something to which I knew of no parallel on that geological horizon in that part of England. A large rib had been put together, as well as an ischium and part of a pubis; I also saw a part of the centrum of a dorsal vertebra. On these remains I formed and expressed the opinion that they were closely allied to, though pro- bably not identical with, the large Cetiosaurus in the Oxford Museum. After an interval of eleven years I again had my attention directed to this specimen, when Mr. Charles Leeds wrote that he had deter- mined the fossil to be Ornithopsis, on the basis of comparison with the Wealden specimens in the British Museum, and inviting me again to examine the remains. Being otherwise fully occupied and unable to leave London, I referred Mr. Leeds to Mr. Hulke as the author of nearly all that has been written on Ornithopsis; the result appeared in a memoir on Ornithopsis Leedsii, printed in the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. These remains, still preserved in the wonderful collection at Eyebury, are the largest and most perfectly preserved pelvic bones of a Saurischian reptile known in this country. Their chief characters have been sufficiently, though briefly, given by Mr. Hulke, and I should not have added to that notice if it had not been that a uew examination of the reptile has led me to take a divergent view of the mutual relations of the bones.