4. On Proterosaurus Speneri, von Meyer, and a new species, Proterosaurus Huxleyi, from the Marl-slate of Midderidge, Durham. By Albany Hancock, Esq., F.L.S., and Richard Howse, Esq.
(Communicated by Prof. Huxley, F.R.S., F.G.S.)
(Plates XXXIX. & XL.)
In the preceding paper it has been stated that the requirements of a railway company for increased accommodation of their traffic, and the continuous indefatigable exertions of our friend Joseph Duff, Esq., to enlarge the knowledge of the Marl-slate fauna of Durham, have led to the discovery of some fossil remains which are certainly the most interesting palaeontologically of recent acquisitions. These consist of a considerable portion of the skeleton of that earliest- recorded and still oldest-known reptile, Proterosaurus Speneri, v. Meyer, and also in close association with it of the greater portion of the skeleton of a smaller species, for which we propose the name Proterosaurus Huxleyi. Through the obliging kindness of Mr. Duff these specimens have not only been placed in our hands for description, but have also been added to the collection of the Natural- History Society of Newcastle, Durham, and Northumberland.
Perhaps we may be allowed to reflect that in England we have now arrived, after the lapse of more than a century and a half, at the same point of palaeontological discovery, bathymetrically considered, which was attained in Germany in the year 1706 through the intelligent observations of a learned physician of Berlin, whose name has been properly attached to this earliest discovered reptile ; and also to consider this fact, that after the expiration of 164 years, and notwithstanding the exertions and multiplication of observers and enlarged fields of inquiry, these reptilian remains, described by Spener and compared by him to the Crocodile and Lizard, still continue to be the highest organisms up to this time recorded from the palaeozoic rocks. And thus this discovery, though it increases our knowledge of the geographical distribution of ancient reptiles, adds nothing to our knowledge of their bathymetrical range, if we admit, as is generally done, that the English marl-slate was contemporaneous with, or deposited about the same geological period as, the German Kupferschiefer.
For the history and description of more complete specimens we must refer to the classical monograph of Hermann von Meyer, ' Fauna der Vorwelt — Saurier aus dem Kupferschiefer der Zechstein- formation.'
The geological position in which these reptiles were found has already been described in a former communication, so that it is unnecessary to repeat it here, further than to state that they were associated in the marl-slate proper on the same stratigraphical horizon with such fishes as Flatysomus, Paloeoniscus, &c.
The two specimens which we are about to describe were much obscured in the matrix ; but by the skilful aid of Mr. Thomas Atthey the whole of the bones have been perfectly developed at the
