266 Description of the Head of a Fossil Crocodile. 



near Vincentown, in New Jersey, and has been obligingly pre- 

 sented to our Institution by General William Irick, (on whose 

 farm it was discovered,) and William Whitman, Esq. of this city. 

 These strata of cretaceous limestone were first discovered and 

 announced by me in 1839 ; in which year I published an account 

 of them, with a list of their organic remains, as observed at 

 Timber Creek, in Gloucester County.* Since that period I have 

 continued my researches into this interesting section of our geol- 

 ogy, which I have subsequently identified in two other localities 

 in New Jersey, viz. Vincentown and the vicinity of Salem, and 

 perhaps also in South Carolina west of Charleston ; at which lat- 

 ter place the fossils have been chiefly collected by Dr. Ravenel, 

 who is preparing for publication a description of several species 

 hitherto unknown. 



I obtained from Timber Creek at my first visit, a fragment of 

 the jaw of a Crocodile with three teeth ; but the parts were not 

 sufficiently perfect to enable me to decide to which division of 

 this class of animals it pertained. Upon comparing it, however, 

 with the specimen now under consideration, it appears to belong 

 to a Gavial, and in all probability to the G. clavirostris. 



Dr. Harlan, many years ago, described the remains of a fossil 

 crocodile from the lower or ferruginous beds of this series.f These 

 fragments enabled Dr. Harlan to reconstruct the head so far as to 

 identify it as a true crocodile, to which he gave the name of C. 

 macrorhyncus-X This species is figured in the fourth volume of 

 the Journal of the Academy, and the fossil itself is preserved in 

 the Society's collections. Hf 



During Mr. Lyell's recent visit to this country, he also obtain- 

 ed some fragments of a fossil crocodile which appear to belong 

 to the Procaelian division of this family.*^) 



Prof. Buckland remarks, that "as there were scarcely any 

 mammalia during the secondary periods, whilst the waters were 

 abundantly stored with fishes, we might, a priori, expect that if 

 any crocodilean forms had then existed, they would most nearly 

 have resembled the modern Gavial. And we have hitherto found 



* Vide Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Vol. VI. 



t Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Vol. IV. 



X Medical and Physical Researches, p. 369. 



§ American Journal of Science, Vol. xlvii, p. 214. 



