On a Labyrinthodont Amphibian ( Rhytidosteus Capensis ) from the Trias of the Orange Free State, Cape of Good Hope

Abstract

I n the year 1837 I examined, microscopically, the structure of certain teeth from the sandstone of Guy’s Cliff, Warwickshire, which had been submitted to me by their discoverer, Dr. Lloyd, F.G.S., of Leamington, the form of these teeth being that of simple canines. The well-marked and peculiar structure, so discovered, and the geological correspondence of the matrix with the Keuper of Germany, induced me to apply to Prof. Jäger of Stuttgart (whose acquaintance, ripening into friendship, I had formed at the Meeting of the German naturalists in 1835, under the presidency of Oken, at Freiburg im Breisgau) for a tooth, or portion of tooth, of a fossil in his collection. To this I was moved by the fact that Jäger had described certain remains from the Keuper of Württemberg, as of a Saurian reptile, under the name of Mastodonsaurus , and it was to the teeth of this species that I wished to apply the microscopic test. My friend at once transmitted a tooth of this ancient reptile, and I was gratified to find therein the same peculiar structure which had led me to apply the generic term ‘ Labyrinthodon ’ to the extinct species represented by the Warwickshire fossil tooth: this result was communicated to the Geological Society. The batrachian or batrachoid character of the extinct possessor of teeth of this complexity was subsequently inferred from the structure of the bony palate in a portion of skull, also from the Keuper of Warwickshire, described and figured in a later paper under the