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the palate bones, unlike those of the monitor, were found to 

 be armed with teeth, a character belonging to the iguanas. 

 These palatine teeth, eight in number, and necessarily 

 small, appear to have grown, and to have been fixed, shed, 

 and renewed, like those in the jaw itself. 



All the teeth are pyramidal, a little bowed ; their outer 

 surface is flat, and distinguished by two sharp ridges 

 from the inner surface, which is round, or rather semi- 

 conical. 



The vertebrae, like those of the greater part of the 

 saurians and ophidians, have their bodies concave forwards, 

 and convex backwards. From the form of those, and 

 particularly from the great size of the chevron-bone, It 

 appears that the tail was, like that of the crocodile, long 

 and flattened on its sides, and that it acted sideways. A 

 distinguishing character in this animal is, that the chevron- 

 bones are not articulated with, but are united to, and form 

 one body with the vertebra. The number of the vertebrae 

 appears to have been one hundred and twenty-eight. The 

 length of the tail appears to have been ten feet ; of the 

 trunk, nine feet five inches ; which, with three feet nine 

 inches for the length of jaw, makes the whole length of the 

 animal about twenty-three feet. The indefatigable Cuvier 

 determines, from his researches, that this animal was of an 

 intermediate genus between the tribe of saurians with an 

 extensible forked tongue, like the monitors and ordinary 

 lizards, and those with a short tongue and a palate armed 

 with teeth, as in the iguanas, anolis, &c. Without doubt, 

 he says, it will appear strange to some naturalists to see an 

 animal surpassing so much, in its dimensions, the genera 

 to which it approaches the nearest in the natural order, 

 and to find its remains with marine productions, since 

 no saurian is now known to live in salt water ; but these 

 singularities, he observes, are of very little consideration in 

 comparison with so many others which offer themselves to 



