On the fossil remains of reptiles, and on chelonian foot-tracks, from the Devonian strata of Morayshire / by Lambart Brickenden and Gideon Algernon Mantell.

  • Brickenden, Lambart.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the fossil remains of reptiles, and on chelonian foot-tracks, from the Devonian strata of Morayshire / by Lambart Brickenden and Gideon Algernon Mantell. 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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    as three to four ; the hinder being about one inch in diameter. The imprints are slight cavities, and are all characterized by the same rounded and blunt appearance, apparently indicating that the articu- lations of the feet were closely connected, although, from the cry- stalline and arenaceous surface of the stone, the form and number of the joints of the toes cannot be positively determined. A slight trail- ing mark is observable between some of the foot-marks. In some of the marks it appears that the foot, in pressing on the originally yielding sand, had slightly raised the surface at the heel, but this is scarcely perceptible in the drawing. The strata of yellow sandstone, from which the above slab was removed, prevail in great thickness on the sea-coast of Moray, between the villages of Covesea and Burghead, and are regarded as belonging to the upper division of the Devonian Series of Scotland ; and this opinion is based on the fact of finding the yellow sandstone in apparently consecutive order of po- sition to, or closely connected with, neighbouring rocks which are unquestionably Old Red. It unfortunately happens that we have but few organic remains to assist in determining the relation of these strata ; for with the excep- tion of the relics of that remarkable Devonian fish, the Stagonolepis Robertsoni, of Agassiz, not a fossil of any kind had been found in the Covesea rocks, until the discovery of the foot-tracks in question. Within the course of the last month, however, a neighbouring hill on the margin of Loch Spynie, hitherto barren of organic remains, but which, like that of Covesea, is held to be Devonian, has yielded from the bottom of its deep quarry a beautiful specimen of a Reptile, which, although its entire length could not have exceeded seven or eight inches, exhibits the vertebral column, ribs, the extremities, and the skull in a compressed state, with some small conical teeth having a smooth enamelled surface. This peculiarly interesting relic came into possession of Patrick Duff, Esq., of Elgin, who has liberally permitted me to transmit it to London, for the examination of my friend Dr. Mantell, by whom the accompanying description has been drawn up. 4 I would here mention that at the time of my finding the foot- tracks at Cummingston, a strict investigation took place as to whether the sandstone strata i'rom which the slab was obtained are unques- tionably referable to the Devonian formation, to which they had always been considered to belong; the occurrence of foot-prints, ap- parently of Chelonians, in rocks in which no vestiges of the class Reptilia had ever been observed in any part of the world, having led some persons to doubt whether they might not be connected with the Permian Series. The discovery of the Reptile at Spynie, by Mr. Patrick Duff, dispels, however, all doubts on this point, for the sand- stones of Cummingston and Spyuie are identical, and at Spynie are