246 THE BATH OOLITE PERIOD. CHAP. 



Enstone ; and I am not without hopes that your friend, to whom the 

 bone found at Buckingham belongs, will be disposed to aid in my 

 contemplated discovery of the real nature of this unknown animal, by 

 adding his name also to the list of our benefactors, and increasing 

 twenty-fold the value of his specimen to the scientific world, by placing 

 it in company which it will itself illustrate, and by which it will 

 be illustrated. Five boxes, full of nearly as large bones of another 

 reptile from the Isle of Wight, were presented to our Museum 

 by a gentleman who found them on his estate at Yaverland last 

 summer ; and I need not tell you that the collection of fossil bones 

 in the Oxford Museum is one of the finest in the world. 



WM. BUCKLAND.' 



Professor Owen, writing of these bones in 1841, informs us that 

 ' a few large caudal vertebrae, and other bones of the ceteosaurus, 

 have been discovered in the oolite of the neighbourhood of the town 

 of Buckingham/ and form part of Dr. Buckland's Museum h . 



No vertebrae corresponding to these remarks can now be identified 

 in the Oxford Museum. The form of the large caudal vertebra 

 noticed in Dr. Buckland's letter is however preserved to science by 

 an admirable cast, which was sent by him to the donor, and is 

 now, by the gift of his son, Mr. Alfred Stowe, M.A., of Wadham 

 College, placed in the Bucklandian collection. 



The next occurrence was noted in Northamptonshire. 



About the year 1840, in cutting the railway from London to 

 Birmingham, a considerable number of gigantic bones occurred at 

 Blisworth, within an area of twelve feet by eight feet. Besides 

 five vertebrae agreeing with those already mentioned, bones sup- 

 posed to be of the fore-limbs and sternal arch, and a portion of rib, 

 were recognized by Professor Owen, who received the specimens 

 from Miss Baker i. They were from the Great oolite. Their present 

 ' whereabout ' has not been ascertained. 



About the same time, other specimens were discovered which are 

 noticed by Professor Owen in the Report already referred to, in 

 the following terms : { In the Museum of Professor Sedgwick there 

 is a caudal vertebra of the ceteosaurus, from the neighbourhood of 

 Stratford-on-Avon,' (probably Stony- Stratford is meant). Staple- 



h Reports of British Association for 1841, p. 101. 

 4 Geol. Soc. Proc. 1841, June 30 ; vol. iii. p. 460. 



