AMPHITHERIUM. 45 
such a structure to a Saurian reptile with a degree of 
scepticism, which the configuration of the vertebre and 
other bones figured in Dr. Harlan’s Memoir tended to 
increase. An unbiassed Anatomist, after a critical perusal 
of that memoir, would have been justified in maintaining 
a cautious hesitation in applying the conclusions of Dr. 
Harlan, as to the Saurian nature of his gigantic fossil 
animal with two-fanged teeth, to depreciate the value of 
the mammalian evidence yielded by the Stonesfield fossils. 
That Author’s Memoirs, in the Transactions of the Ame- 
rican Philosophical Society, and in his ‘* Medical and Phy- 
sical Researches,” cannot, however, be made responsible for 
the statements that the Basilosaurus is closely allied to the 
Squali, or that it is found in the Oolite of the New World; 
for Dr. Harlan, in his second and more extended Memoir, 
and in his Communication to the Geological Society, ex- 
pressly leaves the geological question open, and contents 
himself with the statement —‘“In the matrix of the 
vertebra from the Washeta river was a fossil Corbula, 
common to the Alabama tertiary deposits.” And the only 
character by which the so called Basilosaurus approaches 
to Amphitherium, is the implantation of the molar teeth by 
two fangs, which they exhibit in common with most 
Mammalia. 
That the Basilosaurus is, in fact, a mammiferous animal, 
I had the satisfaction of demonstrating,* in January 1839, 
by a close examination of the bones and teeth described by 
Dr. Harlan, on which occasion I proposed for it the name 
of Zeuglodon. All the subsequent discoveries of the re- 
mains of that gigantic species,—and an almost entire 
skeleton has been recently brought to light,~-—have added 
* Geological Transactions, 2nd Series, vol. vi. p. 69. 
+ Silliman’s American Journal, vol. xliv. p. 41]. 
