Terrestrial saurians from the Rhaetic of Wedmore Hill / by H.G. Seeley.

  • Seeley, H. G. (Harry Govier), 1839-1909.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Terrestrial saurians from the Rhaetic of Wedmore Hill / 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.

    5/10
    [.Extracted from the Geological Magazine, Decade IY, Yol. V, No. 403, p. 1, January, 1898.] On large Terrestrial Saurians from the Rh^tio Beds of Wedmore Hill, described as Avalonia Sanfordi and PlCRODON HeRVETI. By H. G. Seeley, F.R.S., Professor of Geology in King’s College, London. (PLATE I.) IN 1894 Mr. W. A. Sanford described, in the Proceedings of the Somerset Archaeological Society (vol. xl, 1894, p. 234), the geological circumstances of the discovery of a large fossil reptile. The fossil bones were found by the Rev. Sydenham H. A. Hervey and himself in the Rhaetic beds in the parish of Wedmore, in the Yale of Glastonbury; and compared to Megalosaurus in its large size and carnivorous character. The remains were generously presented to the British Museum (Natural History) at South Kensington. I have now to redeem a promise made by Mr. Sanford in his paper that I would name and describe the specimens. The fossils comprise teeth, bones of the hind limb, dorsal and caudal vertebrae, and ribs. The discoverer remarks upon the way in which the bones appear to have been broken, crushed out of form, and scattered in the deposit. These results are partly due to transport of the specimens at the time of deposition; and partly, apparently, to movements of the strata associated with the uplifting of the rocks in that part of England. Only two teeth were saved; they indicate two distinct genera. One tooth (p. 2, Fig. 1) is of a generalized Megalosaurian type, and has the summit of the crown greatly worn with use, and rounded. The crown is broad and thick, 12mm. wide and 7mm. in thickness; but towards the base of the crown, the width from front to back increases faster than its thickness. The anterior margin is rounded trom side to side, as well as convex from above downward. If any serrations were ever developed, they were in the proximal part, which is worn away. In type the tooth resembles Zancloclon and Euslcele- saurus. Those types agree with Megalosaurus in the limitation of the anterior serrations to the upper margin of the tooth in the lower jaw. Mr. Sanford states that the root of the tooth crumbled, and that portions of the lower jaw were found. Taken by itself the