48 : MOSASAURUS. 
uniting itself with the maxillary bone and the ossified dental pulp, inserts and fixes 
the tooth with additional force.” 
Again, in comparing the mode of implantation of the teeth of Mosasaurus with 
the living Monitor and Iguana, Cuvier' observes of the former that “the socles 
(pedestals) or ossified pulps, which support the teeth, are adherent in hollows or 
true alveoli contrived in the thickness of the border of the jaw.” 
Goldfuss,’ referring to the Maestricht and the Missouri Mosasawrus, says, “in 
both, the crowns of the teeth, invested with shining enamel, are sustained upon the 
dental capsule which is transformed into an osseous socle, coossified with the 
alveolus, and they are in part hollow internally and in part solid.” 
Owen, in his Odontography, page 258, in reference to Mosasaurus, observes that 
“‘the maxillary teeth combine the pleodont with the acrodont characters.” Further 
on he continues, “its dentition exhibits in an eminent degree the acrodont character ; 
the teeth being supported on expanded conical bases anchylosed to the summit of 
the alveolar ridge of the jaws; no existing Saurian exactly parallels this mode of 
attachment of the teeth, either in regard to the breadth of the alveolar border or 
in the relative size of the osseous cones to the teeth which they support. A shallow 
socket is left where the tooth and its supporting base are shed.” The same 
authority, in a more recent work, Paleontology, page 279, remarks that “the teeth 
are anchylosed to eminences along the alveolar border of the jaw according to the 
acrodont type.” 
Pictet, in his Traité de Paléontologie, tome 1, page 504, speaks of the tecth of 
Mosasaurus as being deprived of true roots and anchylosed to the jaw. 
Gibbes, in his Memoir on the Mosasaurus,’ follows the descriptions of Cuvier 
and Owen. 
Gervais, in the Zoologie et Paléontologie Francaises, tome 1, page 262, in de- 
scribing some teeth which he refers to Letodon, observes that as in Mosasaurus they 
are inserted in alveoli with which their root’is identified by means of the surround- 
ing layer of cement. Ina note he adds the remark, “c’est a tort que l’on décrit 
les dents des Mosasaures comme réellement acrodont a la maniere de celles de 
beaucoup de Sauriens actuels.” 
From the fossil specimens I have had the opportunity of examining, the history 
of the dentition of Mosasawrus, so far as I have been able to trace it from the im- 
perfect materials, appears to be as follows :— 
The mature teeth of Mosasaurus have curved conical crowns with long, robust 
fangs inserted into sockets or alveoli, with which they were at first connected in 
the ordinary manner by connective tissue, but with which they subsequently became 
firmly coossified. They contain in the interior a large fusiform pulp cavity com- 
1 Ossemens Fossiles, 143. 
* Schidelban des Mosasaurus; Nov. Act. Acad. C. L. C. Nat. Cur., XXI, 178. Bei beiden sitzen 
die, mit einem braunen, glinzenden Schmelze tiberzogenen Zahnkronen auf der zu einen verknécherten 
Sockel umgewandelten, in der-Alveole angewachsenen Zahnkapsel, und wird im Innern theils hohl, 
theils ausgefiillt. 
8 Smithsonian Contributions, Vol. II. 
* Goldfuss (Nov. Act. Acad., XXI, Pl. 9) has given two figures of teeth with their fangs, which 
