272 , 



acutus. III. Longbeaked (Gaoials). The jaws elongated and cylindri- 

 cal the feet palmated. Under this sub-genus he places the large and 

 small gavial, as C. gangeticus and C. tenuirostris. 



The remains of animals referable to the genus Crocodile, and of others, 

 which though not of this genus, may be considered as of the family of 

 lizards, have been found in a fossil state in different parts of the world, 

 but particularly in this island, in Germany, and France. 



In the greatest part of Thuringia and of Voigtiand, bordering upon 

 Hesse, and even in Franconia and Bavaria, is a bed of bituminous 

 inarl-slate, which Mr. Werner considers as the lowest stratum of the first 

 floetz lime-stone. It is from this bed of schist, in the neighbourhood of 

 Mansfield, Eisleben, Ilmeneau, &c. that those impressions of fish are 

 obtained, which are so frequently beautified by the brilliant coatings of 

 copper and silver pyrites. 



Above this cuprous schist are beds of lime-stone, in which exist belem-* 

 nites, entrochi, anomise, and other remains of high antiquity. On this 

 lime-stone is gypsum, accompanied with sal gem, above which is sand- 

 stone, covered by gypsum, without salt; and on this is another shelly 

 lime-stone, in which are the celebrated caverns, containing the remains 

 of bears and of other carnivorous animals. 



The bed of bituminous slate, in which the impressions of fishes, and 

 also of oviparous quadrupeds, are found, are indubitably, from their 

 situation, the most ancient of the strata here enumerated ; whilst the 

 fishes, whose impressions are here found, are generally supposed to be 

 those of fresh-water fish ; and the oviparous quadrupeds, whose im- 

 pressions accompany them, are always, according to M. Cuvier, ani- 

 mals which frequent marshes and the banks of rivers. From the repre- 

 sentations of four fossil specimens, that by Spener, MiscelL berol. i. Fig. 

 24 and 25, p. 99, from the neighbourhood of Salzungen ; that of Link, 

 from the same place, Letter to Dr. Woodward, &c. ; that by Sweden- 

 bourg, from Alteristein, DC Cupro Tractat. PL n. ; and one from the 

 mines of Rothenbourg, near Saal, at the depth of 264 feet; M. Cuvier 



