Seeley—Fossil Whale. 55 
Cetacean. The fossil was found at Roswell Pit in the Boulder- 
clay, but the Professor writes, ‘I have not the shadow of a 
doubt that it was washed out of the Kimmeridge (or the Ox- 
ford) Clay, for both clays are near at hand. In condition it is 
exactly like the bones from those clays; and is utterly unlike 
the true Gravel bones, whether in the dry Gravel, or the Till.’ * 
This is unmistakeable, for the specimen is mineralised with 
phosphate of lime; and so could have been derived from no 
deposit newer than the Crag. It is partly coated with stalag- 
mite; but that condition was probably acquired while the 
fossil was embedded in the Drift; and when the thin crust is 
stripped off, the bone is quite like other bones from the Kim- 
meridge Clay. The Boulder-clay itself is largely made of 
nodules of Chalk and Kimmeridge Clay, with, if we may judge 
from fossils, a sprinkling from most of the older rocks; so, 
although an Upper Greensand fossil would have the same 
aspect, Prof. Sedgwick’s determination of its age is legitimate, 
and probably true. 
Professor Owen has examined the specimen, and in the 
‘Brit. Assoc. Reports’ classed it as a species of Delphinus. 
In the ‘British Fossil Mammals,’ p. 520, it is spoken of as one 
of the Delphinide; and in the ‘ Paleontology,’ p. 355, as an 
animal as large as a Grampus. 
The fossil consists of the axis, third and fourth cervical vertebra, 
and the neural arch of the fifth. The centra of the second and 
third are anchylosed. In outline they form a broad depressed 
triangle, 6? inches long by about 4 inches high; and from the 
odontoid process to the fourth vertebra they measure 3 inches: the 
odontoid process projects three-quarters of an inch ; half the re- 
maining thickness is made up of the axis, and the other half 
equally by the third and fourth vertebrae, with their interspace 
of an eighth of an inch. The third vertebra has a slight hypa- 
pophysis ; the fourth is broken underneath : posteriorly, it shows 
the characteristic Cetacean unossified epiphysial surface. 
In front the neural canal is a circular hole, 18 inches across ; 
but behind it is half an inch wider, the floor has become flat, and it 
is scarcely so high as in front, where it is made circular by sloping 
down to the odontoid process. 
The articular surface of the axis is a little concave ; it extends 
from the base as high as the middle of the neural canal, and is 
5 inches wide, being nearly double the width of the fourth vertebra, 
which measures 2? inches wide, by 24 inches high. The odontoid 
process is in the middle of the centrum, concave above, convex 
below, and in a line with circular foramina at the sides of the arti- 
cular surface. These are passages for the vertebral arteries ; they 
* Letter in ‘ British Fossil Mammals,’ p. 520. 
