Fossil Reptiles of New- Jersey. 1'35 



1. Of the Mosasaurus. PI. III. figs. 1 and 2. 



I was led to the investigation of this fossil reUe, consisting 

 of a single tooth and fragment of a jaw, from a remark made 

 by Cuvier respecting it, which seemed to leave it uncertain 

 whether the specimen in our cabinet really belonged to the 

 genus Mosasaurus.* 



Another foreign naturalist, who could only have seen a 

 drawing of this fossil, declares unreservedly that it belongs to 

 the Ichthyosaurus. 



We shall first give the history of this fossil, and as the 

 work in which it was noticed and figured is now out of print, 

 we have deemed it useful to reproduce the figure from a new 

 drawing. 



In Professor Mitchill's "Observations on the Geology of 

 North America," appended to the New- York edition of Cu- 

 vier's Essqy on the Theory of the earth (1818) there is a figure 

 of the relic in question. It is briefly noticed as " a tooth and 

 part of the jaw of a lizard monster or saurian animal resem- 

 bling the famous fossil reptile of Maestricht." On the plate it 

 is stated to be the " tooth and part of the jaw of an animal 

 resembling the saurian reptile of Maestricht. Foot of the 

 Neversink hills, Sandy Hook." The label which accompanies 

 it in the Cabinet, states, that it was obtained from a marle-pit 

 in Monmouth county, New-Jersey. 



* " Je vols dans une note adressee par le Docteur Mitchill de New- York 

 a radministrration du Museum, que ce savant a des dents fossiles, tirces 

 des marnieres du comte de Monmouth dans I'Etat de New- Jersey qu'il 

 considere comme de la meme espece que I'animal de Maestricht. — 

 L'auteur n'en donne point de description detaillee." Ossemens Fossiles 

 Tome V. 2me. partie 310. 



I perceive also that Dr. Morton, in his valuable Synopsis of the or- 

 ganic remains of the ferruginous sand formation in the 1 7tli vol. of the 

 American Journal of Science partakes of the same doubt in referrinsr 

 the remains of this animal to the Mosasauru>--. 



Vol. III. 18 



