152 FOSSILE RORQUALS, ETC. 



A cetaceous animal of much larger dimensions 

 was discovered in 1775 in Paris. A wine merchant 

 in La Rue Dauphine, while cutting trenches in his 

 cellar, discovered a fossile hone of considerable 

 dimensions in a yellowish and sandy clay, which 

 appears to he the natural soil of the locality. 

 Solicitous to spare the labour necessary for its en- 

 tire extraction, he hroke it, and raised a portion 

 weighing two hundred weight. This attracted the 

 attention of the curious ; a cast was taken hy 

 Lamanon, and a sketch and description were pub- 

 lished in the Jour, de Physique for 1781. This 

 cast, with additional sketches, fell into the hands of 

 Cuvier, and he, with that success which attended 

 all his labours in this department, detected it to be 

 a portion of the right temporal bone of a whale. 

 He compared it with corresponding portions o 

 others, and concluded that the length of its head 

 was about sixteen feet, and that the total length 

 of the animal to which it belonged could not be 

 less than fifty-four feet, without including the tail 

 or lips, which would raise its size to about sixty 

 feet. Cuvier moreover remarks, that although this 

 size agrees with that of the mysticetus, yet the 

 details of the shape, and the comparison of the pro- 

 portions, indicated decided differences. His con- 

 clusion is, that, according to all appearance, this 

 fragment belongs to a cetaceous animal of a species 

 which is unknown, even among fossiles. 



Several remains of fossile whales of great dimen- 

 sions have been discovered, deposited in marine 



