164 FOSSIL WHALE. 



"I was able to obtaiu the following measurements of the head, which admit of direct comparison with a 

 part of the measurements, given by Cuvier, of the head of Beluga Icucas : 



B. Vcrmontana. B. leucas. 



Length of the head, from the occipital condyles to the end 



of the snout, 21.2 inches. 20.9 inches. 



Length of one side of the lower jaw, . . . 16.5 inches. 16.5 inches. 



Length of the alveolar margin, .... 8.2 inches. 7.8 inches. 



Length of the symphysis, 3.1 inches. 3.1 inches. 



" Between these measurements, it will be seen that there is a very close agreement ; but they disagree in 

 their dental formula?, as expressed below. 



B. Vermontana. B. leucas. 



Dental formulae, -f-, -f-, = 30. --, -, 36. 



" They also differ in the relative width of the maxillary and intermaxillary bones, as developed on the 

 upper side of the snout, and also in the outlines of the head. 



" Since the above measurements and comparisons were made, I have had an opportunity to examine the 

 bones of three heads of B. leucas, in the Hunterian Museum, in London, and an entire skeleton of the ani- 

 mal in the collection of Prof. Agassiz, at Cambridge, Mass. On account of the absence of Prof. Agassiz, 

 when I visited Cambridge, a minute description of my fossil bones, with the corresponding bones of his 

 skeleton, was not gone into, but a sufficient number of bones were compared, to leave little doubt that they 

 belong to different species of the same genus. I have, therefore, described my Beluga under the specific 

 name of Vermontana, which I gave it provisionally in my first account of the fossil."* 



Prof. Thompson next introduced an elaborate account of the locality in which this fossil was found, which 

 may be found in his Appendix, pp. 18 and 19. The locality is very nearly a mile and a half, by exact 

 measurement, south of Charlotte station on R. & B. R. R., in an excavation about sixteen feet deep. 

 " The surface of the ground slopes to the south, and, to the depth of four feet, consists principally of sand, 

 showing no signs of stratification. Next, below this, is a mixture of sand and clay, finely and regularly 

 stratified, for a depth of two and a half feet, below which is a vast bed of fine blue clay, in which were 

 observed no signs of stratification, and which appears to have been, previous to the deposit of the sand and 

 clay above it an extensive quagmire. The fossil bones were imbedded in this clay, at an average depth below 

 its surface of nearly two feet. The head of the skeleton was towards the northwest, was lowest, and was 

 nearly on a level with the railway, while the posterior parts extended obliquely into the bank, towards the 

 southeast. In the blue clay, with the bones, were found some vegetable remains, and also specimens of 

 Nucula and Saxicava. At the surface of the blue clay were great numbers of Mi/filus edulis and Samjuin- 

 olaria fusca, and the latter were scattered through the stratified sand and clay above. The locality, as 

 ascertained by the railroad survey, is sixty feet above the mean level of Lake Champlain, and one hundred 

 and fifty feet above the ocean." 



Prof. Thompson figured several of these bones ; namely, the head, viewed from above, and on the side ; 

 several of the teeth ; eleven of the cervical, dorsal, lumbar and caudal vertebras ; a chevron bone ; the 

 hyoid bone ; the- sternum ; a rib, and a scapula humerus, and the bones of the forearm of the left fin in 

 connection. 



This skeleton, Avith the collection of Prof. Thompson, is now in the State House in 

 Montpelier, but the separate bones have been wired together, and many of the missing 

 bones have been supplied by models in wood. The work of restoration and fitting the 

 bones together in, as far as possible, their natural position, was performed by Edward 

 Hitchcock, jr., who exhibited the skeleton to the American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science at its Springfield meeting. He made the following remarks upon it, as 

 reported in the New York Times : 



* American Journal of Science, Second Series, Vol. IX, p. 256. 



