AMPHITHERIUM. 43 



such a structure to a Saurian reptile with a degree of 

 scepticism, which the configuration of the vertebrae and 

 other bones figured in Dr. Marian's Memoir tended to 

 increase. An unbiassed Anatomist, after a critical perusal 

 of that memoir, would have been justified in maintaining 

 a cautious hesitation in applying the conclusions of Dr. 

 Harlan, as to the Saurian nature of his gigantic fossil 

 animal with two-fanged teeth, to depreciate the value of 

 the mammalian evidence yielded by the Stonesfield fossils. 



That Author's Memoirs, in the Transactions of the Ame- 

 rican Philosophical Society, and in his " Medical and Phy- 

 sical Researches," cannot, however, be made responsible for 

 the statements that the Basilosaurus is closely allied to the 

 Squali, or that it is found in the Oolite of the New World ; 

 for Dr. Harlan, in his second and more extended Memoir, 

 and in his Communication to the Geological Society, ex- 

 pressly leaves the geological question open, and contents 

 himself with the statement " In the matrix of the 

 vertebra from the Washeta river was a fossil Corbula^ 

 common to the Alabama tertiary deposits." And the only 

 character by which the so called Basilosaurus approaches 

 to Amphitherium, is the implantation of the molar teeth by 

 two fangs, which they exhibit in' common with most 

 Mammalia. 



That the Basilosaurus is, in fact, a mammiferous animal, 

 I had the satisfaction of demonstrating,* in January 1839, 

 by a close examination of the bones and teeth described by 

 Dr. Harlan, on which occasion I proposed for it the name 

 of Zeuglodon. All the subsequent discoveries of the re- 

 mains of that gigantic species, and an almost entire 

 skeleton has been recently brought to light, -f- have added 



* Geological Transactions, 2nd Series, vol. vi. p. 69. 

 t Silliman's American Journal, vol. xliv. p. 411. 



