192 M. Von Sommering on the [Sept. 



examination to discover how it happens that in all the fossil 

 animals of antiquity, except some later ones discovered in a 

 lighter soil, the heads in particular are not only crushed, but at 

 the same time dislocated in their parts. How dreadfully shat- 

 tered, for instance, are the fragments of the head and jaw disco- 

 vered at Maestricht, the jaw of the Vicentine animal, the head 

 of the specimen belonging to M. Spener, the heads of the palaeo- 

 therium and anoplotherium found at Mont Martre, and the head 

 of the crocodilus priscus ; while the spine and bones of the 

 limbs have received less injury, and are also less deranged 

 from their natural position. 



It is impossible that this should have been occasioned by the 

 solution of a calcareous strata (kalkauflosung) carrying the ani- 

 mal, or its skeleton, along with it. Or even supposing that this 

 might have been the case, such a current could not have carried 

 away the shattered parts, and afterwards deposited them so 

 tmitedly, as we find them lodged in horizontal strata of (chalk) 

 calcareous slate. 



Since even Cuvier* himself considers the nondescript animal, 

 whose remains we have been here examining, to be not only the 

 most celebrated of any, and to have occasioned the greatest 

 difference of opinion, but to be at the same time the most 

 gigantic of any, " le plus gigantesque de tous," I have the less 

 hesitation in assigning to it the specific name of lacerta gigantea 

 of a former world. 



Lastly, when it is considered that, according to Cuvier's cal- 

 culation, which is certainly not an exaggerated one, this gigantic 

 lacerta was 23 feet in length, we are forcibly reminded of the 

 dragons so much spoken of in fable. At least, the fact that, 

 at one period of the world, there existed animals of the lacerta 

 or dragon kind, more than 20 feet in length, is more astonishing 

 than all that is recorded in ancient tradition respecting monsters 

 which even the wildest fancy did not amplify to such enormous 

 dimensions. 



Explanation of the Plate. (VIII.) 



Figure 1. 



A fragment of the skull as seen on the right side. 



a, b. The uneven edge of the superficies of the fragment of 

 the forehead and nose, to which belonged the part compressed 

 on the left side, fig. 2, o, b. 



a, b, c, d. The upper jaw broken off in front at b, c, in such a 

 manner that more than the intermaxillary bone appears to have 

 been destroyed. 



e, e. The cheek-bone. 



e, e,f. The cavity of the eye, forcibly compressed above so as 

 to appear smaller and lower than that on the left side, or than it 



* Ann. du Mus. torn. xii. p. 145. 



