TOL. XLVni.] fHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 347 



XIX. Of some Uncommon Fossil Bodies. By Mr. Henry Baker, F. R. S. p. 11 7. 



The fossil bodies which Mr. B. sent to the k.s. with this paper, were such as 

 he had never before met with, nor remembered any description of. He received 

 them from W. Frankcombe, a young gentleman residing at Oxford, who was 

 very diligent in searching after curiosities of this nature. He found them him- 

 self, but could not get them out of the bed they lay in without breaking them in 

 many pieces : though he has glued those pieces so well together, that one may 

 judge of them nearly as well as if they had not been broken. 



Mr. B. caused drawings of them to be made, for the satisfaction of those who 

 might never have an opportunity of seeing them ; to which drawings he refers in 

 his description of them. ,j 



PI. 8, figs. 3, 4, 5, 6, show these curious fossil bodies at more than a 4th 

 their real size. They are only 3 in number, though there are 4 figures, one of 

 them being drawn in 1 positions. They are evidently of a bony substance, made 

 black, most likely, and rendered brittle, by some mineral steams or juices, 

 though not corroded by them. Two of these bodies (fig. 3, 4) have the greatest 

 part of their outer surface studded, as it were, with pretty regular rows of tu- 

 bercles, about the size of the heads of small nails, rising to a blunt roundish 

 point, nearly -rV of an inch above the surface they issue from. Many of them 

 appear radiated very prettily from the base to the apex ; and perhaps they have all 

 been so, though in some the lines are not now seen, and may have been obli- 

 terated by time. These tubercles are of a fine shining glossy black colour, and 

 of a much closer and harder substance than the bone from which they rise. ^ 



Fig. 3 represents one of these fossil bodies, whose length from end to end is 

 74- inches ; on the sides from a to b its breadth is 1 inches. The width of that 

 part where the teeth are placed at c about -|- of an inch ; but it gradually de- 

 creases, as does also the breadth of the sides, towards the smaller end, which 

 was probably about an inch longer than it now appears, and terminated in a 

 point. The tubercles are largest in the broadest part, and the farther they are 

 from the teeth, near which they are small and flat ; they likewise lessen towards 

 the smaller end, which is rigid for about an inch, and without any tubercles. 



The under part of this body is placed uppermost, for the sake of showing its 

 teeth to the best advantage. There are 2 rows, running longitudinally, on a 

 little rising in the middle, with no great regularity, and ending in one row of 

 very small ones. The largest are about \ of an inch in length, hooked, of a 

 shining black colour, having still the natural polish, and being extremely sharp 

 and perfect. The sides of this fossil have swelled out, and been naturally more 

 rounded than they are at present : for they plainly appear to have been crushed 

 and compressed together by some foreign force. 



Y Y 2 



