A New Turtle from the Benton Cretaceous. 



BY S. W. WILLISTON. 



(With Plates II-V.) 



Last November Mr. M. A. Low, General Attorney for the Chicago, 

 Rock Island & Pacific Railroad, sent me for examination an unusu- 

 ally well preserved skull of a large turtle that had been obtained by 

 Mr. Schrantz, Roadmaster of the Rock Island R. R., near Fairbury, 

 Nebraska. From the matrix yet adhering to the specimen, I recog- 

 nized its age as that of the Benton Cretaceous. Mr. Low, with his 

 usual generous liberality towards the University, enabled me shortly 

 after to visit the locality whence it was obtained. I found, as I had 

 suspected, the formation in which it had been discovered to be Ben- 

 ton, and not far from its base. The late Dr. M. L. Eaton, of Fair- 

 bury, kindly assisted me in the examination of the region, and by his 

 intervention I obtained various other portions of the skeleton. Un- 

 fortunately the specimen since it was excavated the preceding winter 

 had suffered somewhat and as is usually the case many fragments 

 had been lost. The portions that were obtained, however, are of the 

 greatest importance, as without them the systematic position of the 

 animal must have remained for a long time doubtful. As it is, most of 

 the essential characters of the skeleton have been made out with cer- 

 tainty. It represents not only a new species, which I am glad to 

 name in honor of Mr. Low as a slight appreciation of the many 

 favors he has done the University and indirectly to science, but a 

 new genus which I will call Desmatochelys, and a new family, Desiiia- 

 toc]ielyid(V. 



I desire to express my best thanks not only to Mr. Low but to 

 Mr. Schrantz and to Prof. Geo. Baur, of Chicago, of whose wide in- 

 formation on this order of reptiles he has kindly given me the benefit. 

 His numerous contributions to the knowlege of the Testudinata justly 

 entitle him to the honor of being the highest authority on these 

 reptiles. To Dr. Eaton, but for whose enthusiastic interest in 

 the local geology and science the specimen might never have been 

 exhumed in anything like its present completeness, science is a 

 debtor. A young man deeply and intelligently interested in natural 

 science, beloved by all about him, kindly and obliging as he proved 

 himself to me in my short acquaintance with him, his untimely 

 death is. to be greatly deplored. 



(5J KAN. UNIV, QUAIi., VOL III, NO, 1, JULY 1834, 



