Colossul Fossil Sharh'- 37 



in many parts of the United States, but the observations of our 

 men of science on this subject are not yet sufficiently numerous 

 or so completely digested, as to enable us to give a scientific classi- 

 fication of them. The largest and most noted of the fossil fish 

 of this country belong to the division 



CHONDROPTERYGIA. 



Or Cartilaginous Fishes. 



The bones of one species of shark, upwards of forty feet in 

 length, allied to the Carcharias, have occasionally been found 

 in several localities. In Cuvier's " Theory of tlie Earth, by S. 

 L. Mitchell," p. 400, it is stated : — " The skeleton of a huge ani- 

 mal was found on the Bank of the Meherrin river, near Murfrees- 

 borough, N. C. It was dug out of a hill, distant sixty miles, 

 from the ocean. Capt. Neville and Dr Fowler, who visited 

 the spot, gathered the scattered vertebras which the Negroes had 

 thrown out, and laid them in a row thirty-six feet in length. If 

 to this the head and tail be added, the animal must have been fifty 

 feet or more in length. The former of these gentlemen enriched 

 my collection with two of the teetli and a joint of the neck-bone : 

 the teeth weigh sixteen ounces each ; they are covered with an 

 ash-coloured enamel, except at the roots where they were fastened 

 to the jaws ; the sides of the triangles are six inches long, and 

 the base is four inches and a half across. The single vertebra 

 weighed twelve pounds and a half." These fossils are at pre- 

 sent in the cabinet of the Lyceum of Nat. Hist, in New York. 

 We have recognised them as the remains of a gigantic species 

 of shark. The proteiform varieties presented by the teeth of 

 the individual sharks, render it almost impossible to classify the 

 species from these organs, viewed separately, those of the upper 

 and lower jaw being in most instances entirely different in form. 

 The Cabinet of the Academy of Natural Sciences, however, con- 

 tains specimens of sharks' teeth from New Jersey " marl pits," 

 which resemble closely those of the Squalus zygenn, S. viuste- 

 lus, S. squatina and S. carcharias, two specimens of the last 

 measuring five inches in length and four broad at ba.se. Provid- 

 ed the same proportion exists between the fossil and recent Car- 

 charias, the former must have been more than forty feet in 



