310 



the river Layon, in a calcareous bed formed of fossil fragments of shells, 

 These bones were considerably mutilated, but were known to belong to 

 phocae, lamantins, and cetacea. Ann. du Mus. Tome xin. /;. 273. 



Although these bones could be arranged under their proper genera, 

 the species to which they belonged could not be ascertained. Thus a 

 fossil skull, found with these bones, was determined to be that of a ma- 

 natus, but of one different from those which are known. Three ribs, 

 bearing the cylindrical form peculiar to the ribs of these animals, were 

 found in the Commune of Capians, about ten leagues from Bourdeaux. 



The bones which Esper found in the caverns of Franconia, and which 

 he thought were the bones of seals, are undoubtedly the bones of terres- 

 trial carnivorous animals. But some of the bones found by M. Renou, 

 of Angers, were decidedly the bones of a seal, and twice and a half as 

 large as those of the common seal, P. vitulina t which is now seen on the 

 coast of France. 



No decided remains of the Morse, or Walrus, Trichecus rosmarus, have 

 been discovered in a mineralized state. Leibnitz imagined the elephan- 

 tine remains of Siberia to have belonged to the Walrus ; and Walch, 

 Wallerius and Gmelin, have supposed the fossil jaw found in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Bologna, DC Monum. diluv. in agro bonon. detecto, to have be- 

 longed to the walrus ; but Cuvier has plainly shown, that it is the remains 

 of a small species of the mammoth (Mastodon), as will be more parti- 

 cularly noticed in a succeeding letter. 



I am unable to speak decidedly of a fossil tooth, said to be found in a 

 bed of alluvial matters, in Norfolk. Its substance is very considerably 

 changed : it is about fifteen inches in length, and appears to be nearly 

 perfect at its extremities; although one side of it, and a considerable por- 

 tion of its internal substance is removed. The fineness of its grain and 

 its edge not manifesting the peculiar lozenge-formed decussations observ- 

 able in the ivory of the elephant and of the mammoth (Mastodon), with 

 the size and form of the tooth, lead to the suspicion of its having belonged 

 to an animal of this genus. On the other hand, neither its form nor its 



