274 . Scientific Intelligence. 
coast of Finland or North Norway: one 221:4 feet in height at the 
southern part of the Alten fjord, gradually diminishes to 92°3 feet near 
ammerfest; the other is 91-3 feet at the former place, and 46 feet at 
the latter. He also detects some evidence of two other lines; one be- 
tween the two just mentioned, and the second below the lower one ; the 
evidence however he considers doubtful. 
16. Supposed Birds’ Bones of the Wealden.—(To the Editors of the 
American Journal of Science.) —GENTLEMEN : Will you oblige me by 
the insertion of the following remarks in an early number of your Jour- 
nal, that the error to which they refer may be noticed as widely as pos- 
sible. The evidence on which the presence of birds in the country 
of the Iguanodon was inferred, is fully stated in the “ Medals of Crea- 
tion,” vol. ii, p. 806, and an accurate figure is given of a fragment ee 
bone which was supposed to be the tarso-metatarsal of a wader, on the 
authority of a rigid comparison by Prof. Owen. ‘That eminent zoolo- 
gist having lately re-examined the specimen, now finds that he was 
mistaken in his former interpretation of its character, and concludes — 
that it is the lower part of the humerus, of which the upper part is 
figured in my memoir on the fossil birds of the Wealden, Geol. Trans., 
vol. y: an opinion in which I entirely concur. In fact, I found the 
two pieces of bone near each other, and though the intervening por- 
tions both of bone and stone were wanting, the resemblance was such 
that I attached the bones to a card, and by a dotted outline indicated 
their connexion; but Prof. Owen thought I was mistaken, and I yielded 
to his authority. Prof. Owen, in a paper read a few days since to the 
Geological Society, refers this humerus to a Pterodactyle, and expresses 
his conviction that all the supposed birds’ bones belong to Pterodactyles 5 
but to this sweeping conclusion I cannot assent. The articulating sut- 
faces of the humerus are very imperfect, and we have no certain clue 
to the original form of either the upper or lower articulation; it is 
therefore impossible to determine with precision as to the resemblance 
between this bone and the corresponding one of a bird or of a flying 
reptile. Baron Cuvier from other bones in my possession, expressed 
his belief in 1880, that the existence of the fossil remains of birds in 
these deposits was unquestionable. In the present state of our knowl- 
edge it appears to me, that, although it is probable that the bones in 
question will prove to be Pterodactylian, the evidence is not conclusive ; 
some of them may be referred to birds—and this long mooted point 
vemains therefore in the state it was when I first announced the dis- 
covery of bones belonging to animals capable of flight, in the strata of 
Tilgate Forest. In the language of the illustrious Cuvier, ‘le temps 
confirmera ou infirmera cette idée.” The jaws with teeth, and sev- 
eral bones of a Pterodactyle, have lately been found in-the chalk of 
pF 
