326 AN'NTJAL OF SCrEXTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



miflable typo of rapacious terresti'ial vertebrates of which we have 

 any kiiowk'tlije. In its dentition and luiire prehensile; claws it 

 re.st'nil)led closely j\Ic<^alo-annis ; hnt the fenmr, r(\senil)ling in its 

 proximal ref!:ions more nearly that of the Iguanodon, indicated the 

 probalile existence of other equally important differences, and its 

 Ijcrtaininj^ to another genus. He proposed the name of L(daps 

 aquilungiiis. — Froc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Pkilad., 18G6. 



JJiscuvenj of a Mastodon at Cohoes, N. Y. — During some recent 

 excavations (September, 186G) made by the Harmony Mills Co., 

 Cohoes (about one thousand feet liclow Cohoes Falls), a number 

 of pot holes were discovered in an ancient Ijcd of the Mohawk 

 River, one of which contained the lower jaw of a mastodon imbed- 

 ded in peat and drift wood. These pot holes are worn in the Hud- 

 son River shale, al)out a hundred feet above the present bed of the 

 ^lohawU, and alxnit a mile from where it enters the Hudson. The 

 one containing the remains was about two hundred and lifty feet 

 from the south bank of the Mohawk. The jaw, which was in an 

 excellent state of ])reservation, measured about twenty-eight 

 inches in length and twenty-two in l)readth Ijctween the condyles: 

 on tiie right side there was one molar, and on the left two, one of 

 which was four inches and the other six and one-half inches in 

 lengtii. A considerable portion of tlie skeleton has been found, in 

 a good state of preservation, and evidently belongs to the common 

 mastodon of North America. The imperfect ossification of the 

 epipliyses shows that the animal was comparatively young, though 

 a fi'raale. The pit in which the remains were found was about 

 forty feet deej) ; the arrangement of the materials showed that 

 they had lieen deposited rapidly, and a part of a beaver dam, found 

 near the bottom, would indicate that the whole had been swept in 

 bv a freshet. No other animal remains were found except those 

 already mentioned, although the " beaver sticks " probably indi- 

 cate one contem2)orary of the mastodon. 



Iclithyosaurian Skin. — A specimen of the 7. tenuirosfris, re- 

 cently obtained at Barrow-on-Soar, shows a large extension of the 

 dermal covering upon the surface of the slab, seeming to indicate 

 that the animal had a iirominent ridge along the dorsal region, 

 similar in appearance to that which the males of the pond-newt 

 {^Triton crisiatus) present in tlie s))ring. 



New Fossil Reptile. — M. D'Archiac has recently described, be- 

 fore the French Academy of Sciences, a new fossil reptile found 

 by M. Frossard in the bituminous schist nea*' Autun, Saone et 

 Loire. There were found with these remains some fish, coprolites, 

 and plants, at a depth of two metres below a quaternary deposit, 

 in a stratum five to six metres thick, two and a half of which are 

 now worked for the manufactm-e of mineral oil. The new reptile 

 belongs to Prof. Owen's Ganocephali, strange vertebrates, with 

 ill-defined characters, apparently representing the embryo age of 

 reptiles, just as the Ganoids, with incompletely ossified vertebrae, 

 represent the embryo age of fishes. The new fossil has been called 

 Actinodon. 



Dinosaurian Reptile from the Stromherg Mountains, So. Africa. — 

 Prof. T. H. Huxley exhibited the specimen to the Geological So- 



