Transactions of the Geological Society of Pennsylvania. 353 



Dr. Harlan remarks that the fossil bones of the elephant, although 

 found with those of the mastodon, rhinoceros, me<j;alonyx, ox, deer, 

 &tc., would appear to have belonged to a geological period more an- 

 cient than that of the last named animals, which, according to Cu- 

 vier, are dispersed every where, and often have marine animals at- 

 tached to them, thus proving that they have been, for a considera- 

 ble time, covered by the ocean. 



Although there is an immense mass of the fossil bones of the ele- 

 phant.scattered through the world, tiiere is only one perfect skeleton, 

 namely, that in the museum of Petersburgh. It was found encased 

 in an ice cliff on the shores of the Northern Ocean. 



Bones of that very extraordinary animal, the megatherium, were 

 found, some years ago, in Skidaway Island, Georgia, and described by 

 the late Dr. Mitchill and J\Ir. Wm. Cooper; a complete skeleton was 

 obtained in 1789, on the borders of the River Suaan in South Amer- 

 ica, and is now in the museum at Madrid. This animal has consid- 

 erable resemblance to the sloth — it is of a gigantic size, the bones of 

 the feet being more than a yard long by twelve inches wide. The 

 bones of the megatherium are still to be obtained at the above named 

 place in gi'eat quantity, by some labor and expense, and also at two 

 other places in Georgia — the White Bluff on the Sea coast and some 

 distance up the Savannah River. 



The megalonyx is, in the opinion of Cuvier, allied to the megathe- 

 rium, and as yet there are only three places known whei'e the bones 

 are found — Green Briar County, Va. and Big Bone lick and White 

 Cave, Ky. The bones sent to Philadelphia by the late President 

 Jefferson, were from Green Briar County ; they were found buried 

 two or three feet deep in the saltpetre earth of a cavern, and are 

 still in excellent preservation, completely fossilized and very dense 

 and heavy. 



The fossil Saurians promise to make a considerable figure in the 

 geology of this countiy. Bones of a fossil crocodile and a vertebra 

 of a plesiosaurus, have been found in the marl pits of New Jersey — 

 and fragments supposed to be those of an Ichthyosaurus, near the 

 Yellow Stone and Missouri Rivers. Teeth and probably a fe- 

 mur of the Mososaurus have been found in a marl pit near Wood- 

 bury, N. J., and a tooth and part of the jaw of the Geosaums at 

 Monmouth, N. J. A new genus, the Saurocephalus from Missouri, 

 was described by Dr. Harlan about ten yeare since, (Jour. Acad. 



Vol. XXVIL— No. 2. 45 



