212 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



blunt-nosed sturgeon of to-day, altliougii the branches of the lower 

 jaw were corresiDondingly massive. With such ramlike jaws the 

 mosasaur possessed terrible powers of collision. They were scaled 

 animals, and fragments of their hide and scales have been found in 

 good condition of preservation. 



The first mosasaur discovered was found by Major Drouin in 

 1776, on the banks of the river Meuse, near Maestricht, Germany, 

 On this sjjecimen was founded the genus Mosasaurus, given it by 

 Conybeare in 1822, although the skeleton was previously described 



^#« 



SiLicious Pebbles fkom the Stomach of a Plesiosaur. 



by Cuvier in 1808. The interesting history of the specimen, which 

 created a profound sensation in the world of learning and became 

 mixed up in the history of nations, is herew^ith reduced from Owen. 

 The skull was found in the quarries of St. Peter's Mount by M. 

 Faujas Saint-Fond, Commissary for Sciences of the French Army of 

 the ISTorth. In one of the galleries or subterraneous quarries in which 

 the cretaceous stone of St. Peter's Mount was worked, about five hun- 

 dred paces from the entrance and ninety feet below the surface, the 

 quarrymen exposed part of the skull in a block of the stone which 

 they were engaged in detaching. On this discovery they suspended 

 work and went to inform Dr. Hofmann, suro-eon of the forces of 



