y6 FLORIDA GEOLOGICAL SURVEY-EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT. 
The bones referred to Gophcrus polyphcmus, the land tortoise 
now existing in Florida, present some differences when compared 
with recent skeletons, but with more materials, recent and fossil, 
these differences might disappear. 
In the last lot received is a nearly complete carapace and con¬ 
siderable parts of two others of Terrapene innoxia. These were 
considerably broken up in getting them out of the ground. The 
■shells are thin and delicate. Let us suppose that such shells had 
originally been buried in stratum No. 2 and had been disturbed in 
their partially unmineralized and. soft condition. They could not 
have failed to be broken into fragments and scattered far and wide. 
Cheiydra sculpta is a species very distinct from the existing 
snapping turtle. As shown by the materials just received, it ap¬ 
pears that all the peripheral bones were joined to the costal plates 
by jagged sutures. In Cliclydra serpentina there are between the 
two sets of bones considerable fontanelles. In both species the 
bones are thin and fall apart readily on maceration. The shell 
could not suffer burial and redeposition. Now, in the new lot there 
are seven bones of one carapace. To the nuchal a right and a left 
first costal join accurately. The fourth and fifth costals of the 
right side belong together without doubt. That snapping turtle 
must have lived when stratum No. 3 enveloped it. 
Out of six chelonians, then, found in that stratum at least three 
are extinct. Other fragments in the collections appear to indicate 
additional extinct species, but they do not justify final conclusions. 
In the opinion of the writer this stratum, No. 3. belongs to the 
Pleistocene and not to the later part of it. 
