VOL. LXXVI.3 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 153 



vain ; for he continued still to call it a crocodile, as if its value depended on the 

 species of the animal. The analogy of all the other marine bodies seems to 

 make it still more probable, that these large bones belong to the inhabitants of 

 the sea, and not of rivers. The large turtles, the numberless echinites, madre- 

 pores, shells, alcyoniums, belemnites, orthoceratites, and so on, are all sea 

 animals ; and the crocodile would, in that case, be the only inhabitant of the 

 rivers mixed with them. The pretended crocodile found near Whitby, in York- 

 shire, Phil. Trans, vol. 50, p. 688 and 786,* is undoubtedly the skeleton of a 

 balaena. 



§ 2. After the decease of M. Hoffman, his family having offered the whole 

 collection for sale, I went in August 1782 to Maestricht on purpose to examine 

 it ; and I could not but greatly admire the richness and beauty of the collection, 

 especially that of the fossil bones from St. Peter's mountain ; but as the heirs did 

 not consider the expenses necessary to transport the collection down the Maese, 

 where each sovereign puts an enormous duty on every thing that passes through 

 his territories, nor the small number of persons who were likely to purchase it, 

 they rated the price so high that nobody chose to bid for it. The eldest daughter, 

 having at length become possessed of the whole, offered me the principal speci- 

 mens at a price I agreed to. Among them were the duplicates I have already 

 sent to the British Museum, and with which the honourable trustees are per- 

 fectly satisfied. These specimens may serve also to ascertain what I have said 

 about them, as being real fragments of physeteres, some of turtles, and the 

 like, but not a single one of any species of crocodile. 



§ 3. The arguments for their being jaw-bones and vertebrae of fishes seem to 

 be, first, the smoothness of these bones ; and, 2dly, the many holes by which 

 the nerves go out at the side, and under each tooth, as is very evident in that 

 beautiful specimen now in the British Museum, on the outside of which eleven 

 holes are visible, in the same manner as they are in the delphini, and more par- 

 ticularly in the lower jaw-bone of the cete, the physeter macrocephalus, or pot- 

 fish, cachalot, &c. Sdly, the form of the teeth, which have solid roots, as in 

 pi. 3, fig. 6, BCEF, and the teeth of fig. 8. 4thly, because there are small 

 teeth in the palate, as in Dean Godding's specimen. 5thly, because the verte- 

 brae have the appearance of true cetaceous vertebrae, as in fig. 5, and in several 

 beautiful and large specimens now in the Museum. Several of these vertebrae 

 were besides entirely unknown to me, and not at all analogous to the vertebrae 

 of the crocodile, described and represented by Dr. N. Grew. 



§ 4. As I intended to visit London in 1785, I flattered myself I should still 

 find the skeleton of the great crocodile formerly at Gresham College, and be 

 able to find out such characteristic distinctions as should be necessary to decide 



* Abridg. vol. x, page 259, 289. 

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