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When the first number of the great work of Goldfuss, on the fossils of Germany, made its appearance, about half a century ago, the most novel types it made known were several genera of sponges from the jurassic and cretaceous beds, described under the names of Siphonia, Chemidium, and Scyphia.
These were described by the late Professor Goldfuss under the generic name of Archegosaurus. The skulls, teeth, and the greater portions of the skeleton, nay, even a large part of the skin, of two of these reptiles have been faithfully preserved in the centre of spheroidal concretions of clay-ironstone. The largest of these, Archegosaurus Decheni, must have been three feet six inches long.
Two of these species, however, he has always considered as doubtful, Stegodon ganesa, probably a mere variety of one of the others, and Elephas priscus of Goldfuss, founded partly on specimens of the African elephant, assumed by mistake to be fossil, and partly on some aberrant forms of E. antiquus.
It is much larger than that of any known living species of the same genus. Archegosaurus minor, Goldfuss. Imbricated covering of skin of Archegosaurus medius, Goldf.
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