Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris. 281 



F.R.S. F.L.S. President of the Geological Society, and Professor 

 of Mineralogy and Geology in the University of Oxford, &c. 

 &c. 



The author observes that he has been induced to lay before the 

 Society the accompanying representations of various portions of 

 the skeleton of the fossil animal discovered at Stonesfield, in the 

 hope that such persons as possess other parts of this extraordi- 

 nary reptile may also transmit to the Society, such further infor- 

 mation as may lead to a more complete restoration of its osteology. 

 No two bones have yet been discovered in actual contact with 

 one another, excepting a series of the vertebra. From the 

 analogies of the teeth they may be referred to the order of the 

 Saurians or Lizards. From the proportions of the largest speci- 

 men of a fossil thigh bone, as compared with the ordinary stand- 

 ard of the Lacertae, it has been inferred that the length of the 

 animal exceeded forty feet, and its height seven. Professor 

 Buckland has, therefore, assigned to it the name of Megalosaurus. 

 The various organic remains which are found associated with this 

 gigantic Lizard form a very interesting and remarkable assemblage. 

 After enumerating these, the author concludes with a description 

 of the plates, and observations on the anatomical structure of such 

 parts of the Megalosaurus as have hitherto been discovered. 



May 7.— A letter was read from Thomas Botfield, Esq. M.G.S. 

 accompanied by a collection of bones and horns of the Deer, and 

 bones of Man and other animals, found in a clift of the rock, at 

 a quarry at Hinck's Bay, (near the Old Park Iron Works,) in the 

 parish of Dawley, and county of Salop. Their adhesion when 

 applied to the toDgue, showed that the animal gelatine was nearly 

 gone, which does not take place till after a long period of in- 

 humation. 



ROYAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF PARIS. 



January 5, 1824. — M. Gaillon communicated some observa- 

 tions supplementary to his Memoir, on the Nutritive animals of 

 Oysters. 



Vol. I. t 



